Pandemonium breaks out as microphone mutes Mamata
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee could not speak for more than ten minutes at a public rally in Berhampore on Wednesday as the public address system stopped working and the unruly crowd raised a din. The chaos reached to such a state that the chief minister left the rally in disgust.
Banerjee, who is on a five day tour to the districts, was scheduled to hold a public meeting in Berhampore, a Congress stronghold. As the Chief Minister, this was her first meeting in the Congress-dominated Murshidabad district.
The assembled crowd turned unruly after Banerjee started speaking. However, after speaking for ten minutes, the microphone stopped working. At one stage, the unruly mob started throwing chairs on each other.
It was learnt that a section of the crowd disconnected the wires. While senior Trinamool Congress leaders alleged sabotage to create problems at the Chief Minister’s rally, local Congress MP and CM’s bete noire Adhir Choudhury demanded “proper investigation” into the incident.
But within first 10 minutes of her speech, Banerjee announced a slew of projects for the districts including 121 drinking water projects worth Rs 700 crores, three multi-speciality hospitals, ITIs and polytechnic colleges.
Choudhury, however, accused Mamata of taking credits for the projects in which she had no role to play. “She was there to inaugurate the roads which were built by the Zilla parishad under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna. She was distributing land pattas which were worked on by the Congress-ruled panchayats,” he said.
He also alleged that crores of rupees have been spent on the meeting of the chief minister. “More than Rs 1 crore has been spent on the meeting by the district administration taken away from the money allotted to the NREGA scheme, the multi-sectoral development scheme and several other developmental projects,” he added.
Later in the day, Mamata held a meeting in Krishnanagar in Nadia district. She announced setting up of a medical hub in the district and modernisation of local hospitals that will cost the government Rs 16 crore.
