Angry Mamata threatens to slap lensmen

PANAGARH: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee lost her temper yet again, this time at the "Maati Utsab" in Panagarh in West Bengal when she threatened to slap photo journalists for pushing and shoving. 

"Ek thappar debo. Ashabhyagulo. Dekhchen na agune ranna hochhe (I will give you a tight slap. You are all uncivilized. Can't you see that food is being cooked on the fire?)," an angry Mamata told a posse of jostling photographers and video cameramen on Saturday when they risked tumbling over a makeshift kitchen, causing an accident.

Even though the chief minister wasn't particularly pleased at being shadowed by photojournalists, she didn't stop them. All hell broke loose once Mamata reached a tent where meals were being prepared. The photojournalists broke through the security cordon and forced their way into the shed. One of them moved behind a fire on which a large cooking vessel was placed. At this point that Mamata turned around and angrily rebuked them.

Last week, after touring the Kolkata Book Fair grounds, the firebrand leader had told her private security guards that they should be whipped over a delay in her car's arrival.

The language she used to admonish the photographers created a furore. Congress leader Om Prakash Mishra said she should show more tolerance towards media men and other political parties. "Such an outburst is certainly not expected if a person who holds a public office," he said.

CPM leader Mohammed Salim was scathing. "Beneath the veneer of a cultured image that she has been trying to portray through festivals, there is intolerance and lack of regard or respect for democracy that is inherent in the Congress culture. How can you use such words to chide media men who were there to do their job?" he said.

Trinamool Congress leader Derek O' Brien brushed aside the criticism, stating that it was a complete misrepresentation of facts. "Mamata Banerjee did not lose her cool with the media at an event in Panagarh. The story to that effect is a blatant, malicious lie. For some media, Bengal's CM must be vilified everyday, regardless of facts. As Henry Ford told a blackmailing editor, 'Publish and be damned'," he said, adding that the CM had spoken sharply to a man on Saturday as he was incessantly interrupting Mahasweta Devi while she was trying to light the lamp at the inaugural event.