‘Journalist’ Rajdeep Sardesai has time and again expressed his admiration for the West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee. From downplaying political violence in the state to choosing to eat Rasgulla over asking tough questions to CM Banerjee, the IndiaToday journalist has apparently been a ‘fan’ of Mamata Banerjee defending her on her wrongs and eulogising her even at the slightest possibility of appreciating her.
Union Minister Smriti Irani in a recent interview on IndiaToday reminded Sardesai of the crimes committed by TMC workers against village women in the state for opposing Mamata Banerjee in the elections, as Rajdeep Sardesai attempted to credit Mamata Banerjee for advocating for women’s reservation.
Minister Smriti Irani explained the procedures involved in the implementation of the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ simply Women’s Reservation Bill saying that it can be implemented post 2026 following the census and the delimitation. Sardesai then questioned Minster Irani if it is assumed that the women’s reservations would be implemented in the 2029 elections, “in the interim all political parties must make a greater effort to give more tickets to women.”
“Mamata Banerjee, to her credit has given forty percent tickets, Naveen Patnaik gave thirty-three percent tickets, do you think parties like yours (BJP) and the Congress need to follow suit? Sardesai continued.
In response to Rajdeep Sardesai’s attempt at establishing the TMC’s assertion that they had an upper hand in championing the women’s reservation, Minister Irani said, “Mr Sardesai, mine is the only political organisation in the country, that created a reservation for women within our organisation. If you think that Mamata Bandhopadhyay (Mamata Banerjee) is the flag bearer of women’s rights, I think looking at the tyranny of distance you need to go and visit those villages in West Bengal where women were raped for opposing Mamata Bandhopadhyay.”
“You need to interview those families where women were not allowed back to their villages till such time they were sexually assaulted by TMC goondas. For you to hold Mamata Banerjee as the flag bearer of women’s rights knowing this information is outrageous,” Irani continued.
Rajdeep Sardesai being his usual self, decided not to speak a word on the political violence in West Bengal under the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government, and moved back to questioning the Minister if she is hopeful that political parties would give more tickets to women. The union minister responded to this by saying “My political leadership has done what no other political party has managed to do in this country, to pass the women’s reservation bill,” adding that the other political parties could not do so despite being in power for decades.
It is worth noting that the Bhartiya Janata Party announced in 2007 that it would reserve 33% of its organisational positions, including national office bearers, for women. While Rajdeep Sardesai is curious whether the BJP will follow Mamata Banerjee’s suit in giving more tickets to women in the coming elections, it was the BJP only that first adopted a formal resolution in support of 33% reservation for women in Parliament and State Legislatures and demanded a necessary Constitutional amendment in this regard in 1994.
It is not surprising that Rajdeep Sardesai sees Mamata Banerjee as a women’s rights champion despite being aware of the political violence unleashed by her party workers during the recently held Panchayat elections or the last state assembly elections. In July this year, while speaking to ‘The Lallantop‘ journalist Saurabh Dwivedi, Sardesai not only tried to contextualise the violence but also gave a clean chit to the TMC leader when asked to speak on the West Bengal CM’s failure to hold a free and fair election in the state by bringing in the ‘chronology’ and ‘political culture of Bengal’. Moreover, he also asserted that the Panchayat election was a fight for relevance and sustenance of political stature, thus implying that violence was a political compulsion.
To ask tough questions or eat Rasgulla: Rajdeep Sardesai prefers Rasgulla
In August 2021, the veteran ‘journalist’ conceded that he would have been denied ‘rasgulla’ (a traditional Bengali sweet) by Mamata Banerjee if he asked her about her post-poll pogrom in West Bengal.
Rajdeep Sardesai was asked whether he questioned Banerjee over the saga of political violence in West Bengal. He chuckled and said, “I was not there to take her interview. I went there casually on ‘chai pe charcha’. Had I asked her about the post-poll violence I would not have gotten to eat rasgullas”.
Ignores panchayat election violence in Bengal and covers it up with ‘women chief minister’ argument, just Rajdeep things
While speaking at a The Lallantop program in August this year, Sardesai talked about the crimes against women during riots. In this context, Rajdeep mentioned the Mumbai riots in 1992-1993 and the riots in Muzaffarnagar in 2013. However, when questioned about why he did not mention West Bengal in this context even when it was the recent example of crimes against women, Sardesai tried to do a cover-up by saying that Bengal is the only state at present that has a woman chief minister.
