Bengal Election: Mamata Has Done Nothing For Women's Safety, Says BJP's Locket Chatterjee

Locket Chatterjee on Mamata Banerjee: With Bengal in the thick of election season, leaders have pushed the pedal on intensifying their attacks against the opposition. In the recent aftermath of clashes at poll booths in Nandigram, Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee launched a spate of accusations against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claiming their "goons" caused the disruption. On the saffron party end, Member of Parliament Locket Chatterjee has meanwhile opened fire against Banerjee for doing nothing for women's safety during her tenure on the Chief Minister seat.

"Despite being a woman chief minister, Banerjee has done nothing for women’s safety. Bengal is foremost in torture and trafficking of women," she told CNN-News18. "Bengal’s women made her the CM in 2011 and 2016 because they wanted parivartan... But in 2021, one can see, no woman in West Bengal is safe."

Locket Chatterjee On Mamata: Atrocities Against Women Grew Under Her

Chatterjee, a star candidate on BJP's list this year, is running from Chinsurah in Hooghly district, which goes to polls in the fourth phase on April 10. She was elected as MP for Hooghly's Lok Sabha seat in 2019. A former actor and TMC turncoat, she serves prominently as the General Secretary of BJP Bengal.

"The women of Bengal have been tortured the most under Mamata’s government. Now, they will come out and answer through EVMs (electronic voting machines)... There is Maa Durga, there is Maa Kali in every house," she said.

Are Women Really Unsafe In Bengal? Here's What Data Says

The issue of women's safety in Bengal has found mention multiple times during the election campaigns of both the TMC and BJP, having been referred to by no less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself at rallies in the state. Banerjee had hit back claiming the Modi-Amit Shah "syndicate" was peddling lies about the lack of women's safety in Bengal, pointing back at BJP-ruled states like Gujarat on the same matter.

"Had there been no safety, women in Bengal would not have been able to move around freely at night," she said. Full story here.

How safe are women in Bengal really? As per latest National Crime Records Bureau data from 2018 for Bengal (due to non-receipt of 2019 data), the state had among the highest number of female victims (32) of acid attack and husband cruelty (17,150). Bengal ranked far higher than Gujarat in the tally of female kidnapping numbers as well, at a rate of 8.9 percent per lakh population as compared to Gujarat's 2.8 percent.

The point raised by Chatterjee about human trafficking of women has some merit. NCRB data points at 115 female victims of trafficking and 9 minor girls sold in 2018 in Bengal, the highest alongside Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.