Mamata Banerjee's address at Kelloggs College, UK took a dramatic turn when 'didi' showcased one of her pictures from 1990 assault to the protesting students. During West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's address at the Kellogg College, a group of student protestors showed up with pamphlets, raising questions over violence in and rape in West Bengal. As the chaos continued, she showed an old image of herself from the early 1990s, showing her with a bandaged head. She claimed that the photo was a proof of an attempt to kill her during her time in the opposition.
“If I die, before my death, I want to see unity. Unity is our strength and divide is our fall. It is Swami Vivekananda’s faith. To keep unity is a very difficult thing and to divide the people, it takes only a moment. Do you think the world can sustain with such [divisive] ideology?" Banerjee said at the event.
What happened in 1990?
On August 16, 1990, when Banerjee was about to lead a youth Congress agitation at Hazra in south Kolkata, Bengal was rocked by the news of an assault on her by Lalu Alam, a CPI(M) youth wing worker. Images of Banerjee, with her head wrapped in bandage, and reports suggesting how the injuries might have crippled or killed her, shot the sale of newspapers.
Banerjee, who had made news in 1984 by defeating CPI(M) veteran Somnath Chatterjee in the Jadavpur Lok Sabha election, shot in national politics as a member of Rajiv Gandhi’s team of young leaders.
In 2019, after 23 years of the incident, key accused Alam was acquitted by the court .