West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee faced protesters as she delivered an address at Kellogg College at the University of Oxford in England on Thursday where she faced questions on the RG Kar rape-murder and Singur issue, among others.
In her speech, Banerjee spoke about Bengal’s focus on welfare projects and the upliftment of women. “We are conducting 97 social sector schemes. And in terms of industries and business, Kolkata is now the job destination of the country,” she said.
As she spoke, members of the audience displayed placards and questioned her stance on various issues, including the recent incident at Jadavpur University where a student was allegedly injured by a vehicle that was part of Education Minister Bratya Basu’s convoy. When the RG Kar issue was raised, Banerjee said, “This is sub judice and the Central government is investigating.”
“You are insulting your own institution,” she told the protestors. “I can see ultra Left and Left faces,” the chief minister said, and displayed a picture of the injuries she sustained during the Left regime. To those raising the questions, she asked if they were “communal”.
At the beginning of her speech, Banerjee emphasised how much she wished to see unity prevail in the country. “India is such a country where all religion, caste, creed stay together. In Bengal also, all caste, creed and religion stay together. Our 34 per cent population is minority section who are Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and other castes. I always fight for unity and before my death I want to see that unity.”
Emphasising the importance that Bengal gives to education, she said, “We started giving Kanyashree scholarship up to university level. One million students now get the scholarship and the school dropout rate is almost zero now.”
“In our state, institutional delivery was above 60 per cent when we came to power. Now it (is) 99.9 per cent and within a year it will be 100 per cent. We set up so many mother and child hubs and super speciality hospitals to increase institutional delivery,” Banerjee said.
“In our state, essential food like rice, wheat is totally free. Health service is also free,” the Trinamool Congress chief stated, adding, “We started a unique initiative after Covid, the ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ which is now (followed in) every state of our country. In our society, women preserve some of (their) husband’s money and it spend during crisis… I thought we should give some token money so that they can spend.”
Later, during an interview with a college representative, she was asked to comment on the possibility that India could become the largest economy by 2060 – having already overtaken Britain to become the world’s fifth-largest economy. “I will differ…,” she stated.