NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Narendranath Chakraborty has courted controversy by allegedly calling Operation Sindoor “a staged drama,” and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “playing with the emotions of patriotic people.” In a purported video clip which went viral on social media on Friday, Chakraborty is seen saying to an audience that “the way they (BJP) have started this Sindoor Khela (game of vermilion), it seems that the entire episode is a staged drama. This warmongering by the BJP is nothing but a game. In Operation Sindoor, PM Modi has played with the emotions of patriotic people, including women.”However, he later claimed his comment was “twisted and misinterpreted with an ulterior political motive.”“I have high regard for our security forces, including the Indian army. Part of my speech was being circulated and twisted for an ulterior political motive to demean me and my party. As a citizen of this country, I have always been opposed to the sponsoring of terror by Pakistan and have supported the way our forces guard our frontiers,” the Pandabeswar legislator told news agency PTI.‘His personal remark; we don’t endorse it’: TMCSenior TMC leader and West Bengal minister Chandrima Bhattacharya described Chakraborty’s comment as a “personal” one, and said the party does not endorse such a remark.“Our chairperson (West Bengal chief minister) Mamata Banerjee, and national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, have already articulated the party’s stand against terror and unequivocally supported our armed forces during Operation Sindoor. We are all united in this issue,” Bhattacharya asserted.BJP demands NIA probeOn the other hand, leader of opposition in the West Bengal assembly and BJP legislator Suvendu Adhikari demanded that the anti-terror National Investigation Agency conduct a probe to investigate if Chakraborty had “links with anti-India forces.”Separately, a leader of the BJP’s minority cell filed an FIR against the Trinamool member.In the FIR, the opposition party called for action against Chakraborty, alleging he had made an “anti-national statement belittling the valour and sacrifice of armed forces and encouraging Pakistan-sponsored terrorists to destabilise India”.Operation Sindoor, conducted on May 7, was India’s retaliatory strike on terror camps in Pakistan after the April 22 Pahalgam attack in which 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed in Jammu and Kashmir.
