BJP’s candidate from West Bengal’s Tamluk Abhijit Ganguly has been barred from campaigning for 24 hours during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections after the leader made the “what’s your price” jab on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Ganguly, a former Calcutta HC judge, last week, during a public meeting at Midnapore’s Chaitanyapur said, “Mamata Banerjee, how much are you being sold for? Your rate is Rs 10 lakh? Why? Because you are getting your make-up done by Keya Seth (a personal products brand)? Is Mamata Banerjee even a woman? I keep wondering sometimes.”
Following this, the Trinamool Congress lodged a complaint with the election commission, saying that Ganguly made objectionable comments against Banerjee.
The party also took to X to call out Ganguly’s “misogyny” and said that there is no place for “agents of the nari-birodhis” in West Bengal.
“Abhijit Ganguly has crossed limits of decency by trying to put a supposed monetary value on the only female CM in India, Mamata Banerjee. Therefore, disrespecting not just her but all the women of Bengal. Bengal has no place for such blatant misogyny and the agents of the Nari-Birodhis shall never be tolerated by our mothers and sisters.” TMC said.
What has the EC said?
The central polling body in its order said that Ganguly would not be allowed to campaign for 24 hours starting from 5 pm on Tuesday.
Calling his comments an “erosion of the status of women in India”, the EC said, “The Commission strongly censures Abhijit Ganguly for the above-said misconduct and debars him from campaigning.”
It also warned the BJP leader to remain “careful in his public utterances during the currency of Model Code of Conduct.”
Earlier, the polling body had called Ganguly’s statement “improper, injudicious, beyond dignity in every sense of the term, in bad taste.”
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EC bars BJP’s Abhijit Ganguly from campaigning for a day over ‘what’s your price’ jab on Mamata
