Achi news desk-
The 33-minute video focuses on Sandeshkhali Block-II BJP mandal president Gangdhar Koyal. “We have followed the directions of Swandu De (BJP MLA and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Adhikari). He helped us. We convinced the Trinamool people to do all this (level the allegations) they (the complainants) never said no, they did everything we told them to do. Stopped, we can’t stand (survive) here,” Koyal is heard saying. “I should have done the All this in a very smart way. We said that it (the alleged rape and torture) happened seven-eight months ago. We had to work hard,” he adds.
Trinamool, including party chief Mamata Banerjee and national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, latched onto the video. The CM first addressed X and then spoke at length in public meetings at Nadia’s Chakda and Taharpur on Saturday.
“The sting shows how deep is the rot within the BJP. In their hatred for the progressive thought and culture of Bengal, the Bengal Birudhis (the anti-Bengali faction) have orchestrated a conspiracy to defame our country at every possible level. Never in the history of India has a ruling party in Delhi attempted to defame an entire country, and its people Will witness how Bengal will rise up in fury against the conspiratorial regime of Delhi and ensure their bisarjan (defeat),” Platform X wrote.
Adhikari himself was more guarded in his initial response, choosing not to say anything directly about its content: “I have not seen the video. I will find out whose voice it is and then I will speak about it.” Later on Saturday, he said the truth could be “distorted and spread a misleading version”. “But its shelf life is very, very short. In the end, the truth wins,” he added. “I will approach the CBI and ask for a full investigation so that the culprits are punished,” Adhikari said.
One of Sandashkhali’s first complainants and now the BJP candidate from Basirhat, Rekha Petra, called the video a Trinamool ploy.
“The video is fake, there is no truth in it. Koyal is a BJP man, he can never say all this,” she said. But she also added that the Trinamool Congress “may have threatened Koyal to say all this”.
The video shows BJP Mandali President Gangadhar Koyal crediting Subundu Adhikari for everything. “It was he (Adhikari) who ruled… Why did the Sandashkhali movement survive for so long? He is still holding on, that’s why. No one else has the ability to sustain this movement for so long,” he says in the video. “Empty pockets (Khali Hat) cannot do all this,” he replies when the interviewer asks him if Adhikari sent mobile phones and money.
Koyal is also heard saying that some women have held back from filing complaints because they were afraid to go to the police stations and the investigations that would follow. In the video, a woman is seen saying she backed out because she wasn’t properly instructed. BJP Sandeshkhali Block-I president Shanti Duloy was seen nodding in agreement with the interviewer when asked whether the guns recovered by central agencies were later “planted”. The male interviewer remains unidentified throughout the video, but from the body language of Koyal and others, they seem to be comfortable with him and know him.
“You have written a good drama on Sandeshkhali,” CM Mamata Banerjee later said in Chakda. “The fact has been exposed. I have been telling you all for some time now that this is a conspiracy and drama scripted by BJP. I have heard about this exposure from the media and I have not seen it in detail myself, but I will definitely see it,” she added, linking it to the allegations of harassment against Governor Ananda Bose’s CV: “The representative of the center, honorable governor, have you seen what he did, what he does with the Raj Bhavan employees, calling girls and abusing them? And then Modi spends the night there and leaves. The one who gives a big sandesh (message) about sandeshakhli: why didn’t you give one sandesh to the governor ?”
Koyal himself later called the “viral video a conspiracy and plot”. “They have used technology to fake my vote. It is a ploy to defame me, my party, the mothers of Sandashkali and my leader (Adhikari),” he added.
