West Bengal state correctional administration minister Akhil Giri.
Credit: X/@BJP4WestBengal
Kolkata: The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal on Sunday asked the party’s senior leader and Prison Minister Akhil Giri to resign from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Council of Ministers after a video showing him abusing a woman forest ranger was circulated online and drew flak from the opposition parties.
The party also asked Giri to apologise to Manisha Sahu, the forest ranger, who was abused by the minister while leading a team that removed encroachment from near a beach in Tajpur on the shore of Bay of Bengal in the Purba Medinipur district of the state on Saturday.
Giri, however, told journalists on Sunday that he would resign as instructed by the party, but would not apologise.
The TMC, which has already been drawing flak for highhandedness of some of its local leaders, acted fast against Giri, a veteran of the party, in order to make it sure that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the other opposition parties could not turn his outburst against a government official into yet another weapon to attack the state government.
Mamata, the supremo of the TMC, and her heir apparent Abhishek Bandopadhyay recently sent out a message through the party’s rank and file, asking its leaders and activists at all levels to exercise restraint and respect the faith the people of West Bengal placed on them.
Sahu led a team of officials who had removed the shops set up by the local people on a sea beach in Tajpur in the Purba Medinipur district on Friday. As the evicted encroachers protested, Giri, the local legislator, reached the scene on Saturday. He was seen threatening and hurling abuse at Sahu in the video, which was circulated online.
“Will Mamata Banerjee dare to throw out this minister and put him behind bars? Will charges be filed against him for obstructing government workers and outraging the modesty of women? Let's see if this goon is kicked inside the jail for threatening to indirectly kill and outrage the modesty of a woman,” the BJP’s state unit posted on X on Saturday.
The CPI(M) also criticised the state prison minister’s behaviour with the forest ranger.
"We oppose Giri's words and behaviour. It is undesirable. If he had something to say about the forest department, he could have told Birbaha Hansda (forest minister of West Bengal),” Kunal Ghosh, senior TMC leader, said. “Instead, the mistreatment of the woman officer is unfortunate. Our party does not endorse that.”