Shatabdi Roy, once a popular Tollywood actress, serves as a Lok Sabha MP elected from the Trinamool Congress. But after the Trinamool’s defeat in the West Bengal assembly election, she has distanced herself from the party — and a separate bloc has formed under the leadership of several Trinamool MPs including her. Shatabdi says she feels no guilt over that; what she does feel guilty about is not standing by “Didi” — Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee — in a bad time. “Only one guilt works on me: having to leave Mamata Banerjee in her bad time. But it was Didi who brought us to this place!” she said in an interview with the Indian outlet Ei Samay.
The MP said she remains emotionally attached to Mamata and that not being at her side now also pains her — “but if Mamata Banerjee had cared about my grievance earlier, this would not have happened.” Describing the circumstances of the decision, she said: “When the meeting was called at the Kalighat house after the results, we went — but even there, there was no analysis of the defeat. Didi seems to feel she hasn’t lost. But the defeat has to be discussed inside the party — she should be asking, ‘Why did your area produce this result?’ There was no such discussion. She only says, ‘Write a letter.’ One or two tried to speak; they were cut off. Whatever Didi says on channels and in interviews is what gets said there. A party cannot run like this. So I decided one can no longer stay with this party.”
On Mamata, Shatabdi said: “Didi stopped listening a long time ago. Even on the last day before the candidate list was announced, I WhatsApped Didi about what was going wrong with candidate selection in Birbhum. The reply came in one line — naming a certain person and calling it his mischief. I don’t have Mamata Banerjee’s political wisdom. But I have been in one area for 17 years. I had the capacity to know who in the area is good, who is bad or corrupt. She didn’t listen.” On Abhishek Banerjee — the party’s all-India general secretary and Mamata’s nephew — she said: “Abhishek did listen. I can’t speak for others, but in my case he listened. He would ask many people’s opinions. He had that quality. He took steps too.”
Shatabdi described the new “bloc” the rebels have formed in parliament as essentially a symbolic protest: “We do not want to stay with this party. It is a protest against the arrogance and haughtiness the party had developed. As long as Mukul Roy was there, he would listen — there was a place to speak in the party. Not everything got solved, but he listened from morning to night. After he left there was no one to listen. The party had split — Abhishek camp and Mamata camp. The workers grew more confused.” The MP added that they have no plan at the moment to join the BJP: “We are a separate bloc. We will sit separately. We will hold our own discussions.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report