West Bengal to probe Mamata Banerjee over 2021 leg injury claims

The West Bengal government will launch a fresh investigation into whether former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee faked a high-profile leg injury during her 2021 election campaign, current Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced on Saturday.

Speaking at the State Secretariat in Kolkata, Adhikari waved a medical report from the state-run Bangur Institute of Neurosciences. The report, dated 11 March 2021, apparently showed "no evidence of a fracture" or dislocation in Banerjee's left leg.

"Mamata Banerjee faked her leg injury while campaigning in Nandigram in 2021," Adhikari said. He added that her "false propaganda" had insulted the voters of Nandigram, the constituency where the two political heavyweight rivals famously faced off.

Why the probe is happening now

The timing of the announcement is politically charged. Byelections are scheduled in Nandigram and Rejinagar on 6 October, following Adhikari's decision to vacate one of the two seats he won in the state elections earlier this year.

The Chief Minister said the new inquiry would begin once the Model Code of Conduct is lifted after the votes are counted on 9 October. The state's Criminal Investigation Department is already looking into the matter, he added.

The 2021 campaign incident

The incident in question was a defining image of the fiercely contested 2021 state election. Banerjee, then the Chief Minister, claimed she was injured on 10 March 2021 while greeting supporters from her car in the Reyapara area of Nandigram. She initially suggested she had been deliberately pushed by unidentified people, though she later described it as a crowd pressing heavily against her vehicle.

Following the incident, she spent two days in Kolkata's SSKM Hospital before being discharged with her left foot in a plaster cast. She spent the rest of the campaign traversing the state in a wheelchair, a powerful visual that her supporters rallied behind.

While Banerjee's Trinamool Congress went on to win a resounding victory in 2021, she lost her individual seat in Nandigram to Adhikari by just under 2,000 votes.

The political shift

The political landscape in Bengal has since shifted dramatically. In the state elections earlier this year, the BJP swept to power for the first time, winning 207 seats and reducing the Trinamool Congress to 80. Adhikari, who led the BJP campaign, became Chief Minister.

The Trinamool Congress has reacted with anger to the fresh investigation. Party spokesperson and MLA Kunal Ghosh described Adhikari's allegations as "tasteless" and "reprehensible."

"Slandering and spreading misinformation about anyone’s personal injury is reprehensible," Ghosh said, insisting that Banerjee did suffer a genuine foot injury and that her treating doctors were witnesses to it. He also questioned how the government obtained and disclosed private medical records, noting that medical institutions are legally bound to protect patient confidentiality.