Thaindian News

Kolkata, May 20 (IANS) As Mamata Banerjee walked into the Writers’ Buildings as chief minister Friday, it was also a redemption of a pledge she made 18 years back - not to enter as long as the Left was in power - after being allegedly driven out of the building for protesting.

It was Jan 7, 1993, when Banerjee - then a minister in the P.V.Narasimha Rao central government - stormed into the secretariat with a pregnant deaf and dumb girl who was allegedly raped by a political worker belonging to a Left party.

While Trinamool leaders have claimed they had an appointment with then chief minister Jyoti Basu, the erstwhile Left rulers disagree and allege she only wanted to create a sensation with the help of the “media” present there.

Basu refused to meet Banerjee, who started a sit-in demonstration outside the chief minister’s chamber.

Hours after Basu left without meeting her, Banerjee was driven out by the police and taken to the nearby city police headquarters at Lal Bazar.

“Both male and female police personnel assaulted her, then dragged her outside and took her to Lal Bazar. Around midnight, when police found that a lot of Youth Congress activists have gathered, they wanted to get rid of her. They told her to leave, but she refused saying when they have put her in a lock-up, they should produce her in court. Police, however, refused, and once again dragged her outside the police headquarters,” said Trinamool legislator Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, who was with Mamata during that incident.

A seething Banerjee then rushed to the nearby Gandhi statue in the dead of night and started a sit-in.

“It was then that she promised that she would never enter the Writers’ Buildings unless the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M which spearheads the Left Front) was ousted from power,” he said.

That pledge was fulfilled Friday.