West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP of political sabotage after her helicopter was grounded due to lapsed licensing and insurance. She claimed this was an attempt to hinder her outreach efforts ahead of a rally in Bongaon, where she arrived late after traveling by road.
Photo : PTI
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accused the BJP of attempting “political sabotage” after her helicopter was grounded hours before she was to fly to Bongaon. Officials, however, said the aircraft was barred from flying because its licence and insurance had expired.
Banerjee said she was told around 10 AM that the hired chopper “would not fly”, forcing her to cancel her scheduled 12:30 PM landing in the Matua-dominated region. She later travelled by road, arriving late for the rally.
“I apologise for being late,” she told the crowd, adding, “Elections are yet to begin, but the confrontation has already started. Just before leaving home, I was informed the helicopter cannot fly.”
She accused the BJP of trying to block her outreach. “Don’t play games with me. When I play, you won’t even know. You cannot defeat me politically,” she said.
The BJP rejected her charge, calling it baseless.
“These allegations are laughable,” state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said. “If authorities said the helicopter cannot fly, there must be legitimate reasons. She should stop politicising everything.”
Senior officials said the aircraft had not been used by the chief minister for nearly six months and underwent a routine trial flight on Monday. The expired licence and lapsed insurance were not detected during checks, they said.
“The licence lapse should have been flagged immediately. Allowing a trial flight without fully verifying documents is unacceptable,” a senior bureaucrat said, reports PTI, adding the oversight surfaced only on Tuesday morning.
Officials said Banerjee was displeased and sought an explanation. An inquiry has been ordered to determine how the error occurred and why it was not caught earlier.
Mamata Warns Matua Belt of ‘Voter Delisting’ Under CAA, Calls EC a ‘BJP Commission’
Meanwhile, Banerjee accused the Election Commission of endangering voters in Matua-majority areas, warning that individuals declaring themselves foreigners under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act could be “immediately delisted” from electoral rolls. Speaking at a rally in Bongaon before leading a three-kilometre march to Thakurnagar, she sharply escalated her attack on both the EC and the BJP.
Banerjee urged people not to panic as the Special Identification Revision (SIR) of voter rolls continues across Bengal. Claiming that 35–36 deaths, including several suicides, were linked to fear around the process, she said the exercise had turned “chaotic” and warned that the draft rolls would reveal “the disastrous situation created by the Election Commission and the BJP”.
The chief minister alleged the EC had become “a BJP Commission” acting on “instructions from Delhi” and would use “AI as a tool for manipulation”. She said she would support the SIR if carried out over two or three years, questioning why it was being rushed “coercively” ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls.
Sharp Attack on BJP Over Citizenship and SIR
Banerjee insisted no legitimate voter would be removed after the enumeration. “I have come to assure you, not to ask for votes,” she told the crowd. She accused the BJP of using “crores of rupees and all central agencies” to target her but warned she would “shake” the party’s foundation if politically provoked.
Referring to reports of booth-level officers under strain, she claimed 10 BLOs were hospitalised and three had died during the SIR process. She also questioned why the exercise was being conducted in BJP-ruled states if the intention was to identify “illegal Bangladeshis”. “Does that mean there are ‘ghuspaithiyas’ in double-engine states?” she asked.
Matua Politics in Focus
The chief minister reiterated that under the CAA, anyone identifying as a foreigner risks voter delisting. She accused BJP-aligned groups close to the Matua Mahasangha of issuing “misleading certificates” describing people as Bangladeshi till 2002, calling it “a big fraud”.
She contrasted this with certificates from the Ramakrishna Mission, which she said avoid mentioning nationality. “Just because someone speaks Bengali, how are they Bangladeshi?” she asked, adding that she too could have been labelled one had she not been born in Birbhum.
The SIR exercise and the broader CAA debate have deepened political tensions in the Matua belt, where both the TMC and BJP are vying for influence.
BJP Wont Stay in Power in 2029
Banerjee also asserted that she would “shake” the BJP’s foundation if challenged in Bengal, and later escalated her attack by predicting the saffron camp “will not stay in power in 2029”, as Bengal “understands the poll game unlike Bihar”, where the INDIA bloc lost the elections post the SIR.