Lucknow: “Dekhiye … aap itna achcha lade hain … aap haare nahin hain (You have fought (polls) so well …. You are not defeated),” said Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav as he wrapped a shawl around Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee at her Kolkata residence on Thursday, extending moral support to the outgoing chief minister.This was Akhilesh’s first in-person interaction with Mamata after TMC faced a massive defeat in the recently concluded Assembly elections in West Bengal.Akhilesh also expressed solidarity with Mamata’s nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee.“Koi nahi … You fought (the polls) very well …” Akhilesh said.Akhilesh reached Kolkata on Thursday afternoon, where he was received by TMC’s Derek O’Brien and other leaders. He went straight to Mamata’s residence, where Abhishek received him at the gates. The three then spent time discussing the election results and the present political and law and order situation in West Bengal.Addressing mediapersons, Akhilesh accused the BJP of targeting Mamata primarily because she is a strong woman and the saffron brigade does not like that.“BJP hates her because she represents half of India’s population – the women. BJP people and their ‘sangi-sathi’ have a patriarchal and feudal mindset and can never see a woman progress. They did not allow a woman to become Rajasthan’s chief minister … they have appointed only one woman chief minister (Delhi) who has not been given any powers,” Akhilesh said.Pledging his support to Mamata, Akhilesh said: “We are with Didi in this fight to save the democracy and the (Indian) Constitution.”Akhilesh added that if people are deprived of their right to vote, then there will be no democracy left.“Nobody has destroyed democracy the way BJP has. The BJP can go to any extent for power. They can break any law. We witnessed very closely what the BJP govt did in Uttar Pradesh (bypolls). They have done the same thing here (in West Bengal polls),” he said.Reacting to the killing of BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari’s personal assistant, the former UP CM questioned the security arrangements in place in the state.“When someone associated with a political leader is shot dead, when political workers are targeted and TMC party offices are attacked and set on fire, one question that pops up is: Who is responsible for their security?” Akhilesh said.“The Election Commission and the Union home ministry had claimed that lakhs of central security personnel had been deployed. It was said that more than three lakh central security personnel were sent here and a security structure parallel to the state police and administration was created,” he said, questioning why despite the presence of such a heavy security blanket, violence was continuing in the state.
