After wishing to ‘whip’ security, Mamata wants to ‘slap’ journalists

Showing that media exposure has failed to teach West Bengal chief minster Mamata Banerjee to control her outrageous temper, she said on Sunday that she would like to slap photojournalists.

In the rush to photograph her at a fair in Burdwan, a photojournalist stumbled and fell close to a spot where some women were cooking. ''I will give you one tight slap, you uncivilised creatures. ''Don't you see what's cooking here?'' was Banerjee's reaction.

Only last week, the chief minister had berated her security personnel for a minor delay in the arrival of her official car which was clearly nobody's fault; and said the officer in charge ''deserved to be whipped''.

Banerjee was at the Kolkata Book Fair when she suddenly decided to leave the fair grounds. Given the crowd, it took a while for the car to reach the spot where she was waiting, and the security personnel were subjected to a tongue lashing. ''Apnader chabkano uchit (You deserve to be whipped),'' Banerjee yelled at special branch officer. 

The easily offended Banerjee has frequently been in the news for her displays of intolerance. The instances range from arresting and jailing a man for questioning her about the plight of the state's farmers; to instigating a police case against a cartoonist for posting an unflattering caricature of her online; to banning some English newspapers from state libraries for publishing articles critical of her.

State Congress chief Pradip Bhattacharya said, ''If the chief minister herself behaves this way, how do we expect other party members to conduct themselves?'' His statement may have been politically motivated; but it was on the spot.