Bengal Minister Compares Mamata Banerjee With 'GODDESS', Says 'Do We Stop Worshiping, If...'

Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, a minister for agriculture and parliamentary affairs in West Bengal, compared Mamata Banerjee to "God" on Sunday, adding she was without fault and could do no wrong. The minister, speaking at a public gathering at Khardah in the North 24 Parganas district, said, "A priest in a temple can be a thief, but that doesn't make God a thief. If the priest is revealed to be a thief, do we cease to venerate God? Do we stop worshiping God? Why would Mamata Banerjee, whom we revere as a goddess, steal?"

He claimed that while the CPI(M) was in power, several anomalies occurred in educational institutions but that no one ever looked into them. He claimed that underqualified candidates were also appointed professors in different state-run universities during the Left Front government, despite the fact that he did not have 50% marks in his undergraduate and graduate degrees.

TMC MLA Tapas Roy claimed that their party had a poor reputation because of 'turncoats'. "Our entire party could not be held accountable for the wrongdoing of a few. Other party hooligans have joined the TMC. They aspire to join the ruling party. We wouldn't be in this situation right now if we had stopped this from occurring", Roy added. There are both good and bad people in the society. Few cannot be used to justify the entire party, he said. 

On the issue of corruption, MLA for Burdwan South, Khokan Das, also strongly criticised the Left. The leftists have promoted illegality, he claimed. "There was no law and order in Bengal for the entire 34-year tenure of the leftist administration." Das spoke out strongly against recruiting fraud and attacked the CPM for providing employment in "Chirkut," alleging that CPM members were offered jobs in return for paper tokens. "If jobs are calculated today, no CPM people will work as government employees," he continued, "Due to the fact that the bulk of CPM employees obtained their positions through fraud at various institutions."