Kolkata: Objecting to National Women's Commission's statement that the state women's commission should go to meet violence-hit women in Murshidabad, the panel's chairperson Leena Gangopadhyay on Monday said SCW had already visited Murshidabad a week back. "Unlike NCW, we did not choose to blow our own trumpets," she said.
"We went there, and we will go there again if required. But will NCW go to the places where we would like to go, but cannot, because of our statewide ambit? I really want to go to Manipur; I want to go to UP and MP. The brutalities against women in these states have shaken my conscience...even personally as a writer. Unfortunately, I cannot go anywhere beyond Bengal. At least in Bengal, people have us (SCW) to speak to, there (in other states), the women have none," Gangopadhyay told TOI. She, however, refused to comment on allegations against NCW of having BJP netas as members and guides in its Murshidabad team.
Responding to these allegations on Sunday, NCW chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar had said, "All I will say is I don't want to do politics. I came to be on the side of tortured sisters." Urging those who made such comments to "not divert from the main issue", she had added: "Why don't these critics themselves meet those women and stand with them to feel their agony? Aren't they our own people?"
Meanwhile, Trinamool on Monday attacked NCW for its political bias, claiming that the commission's report was a foregone conclusion. "Last time the NCW had visited Bengal, they coerced the women of Sandeshkhali to sign blank papers to cook up rape charges on the instructions of BJP. Now, their focus has shifted to Malda and Murshidabad," Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dola Sen said in a statement. "The pen's ready. The orders are in. Whitepapers 2.0 is in the works. The draft version has been prepared by BJP-RSS. Why were the women asked to sign blank papers? We demand an answer," she said.
"The NCW, last seen in Sandeshkhali coercing women to sign blank sheets of paper on fake rape charges, is now in Malda/Murshidabad. More blank sheets of paper ahead?" TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose posted on X. "NCW Member Archana Majumdar stood as a BJP candidate in the 2021 Bengal assembly polls and lost. Do we really expect an objective ‘report' from BJP Mahila wing, sorry, NCW (sic)?" she said.