West Bengal rocked by outsider vs local debate

Sat, Feb 23 02:00 PM

Kolkata: The outsider versus local debate seems to be raging across more states than just Maharashtra. The Rajasthan government has hit back at the controversial comments made by a West Bengal minister against the Marwari community.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje says West Bengal Land Reforms Minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah's comments on the Marwari community are unfortunate. At a function on Wednesday, Mollah had said Marwaris are bribing their way to success in business in West Bengal and ruining the state.

The ruling Left Front promptly distanced itself from the minister's anti-Marwari outburst.

However, the community is up in arms. They burned an effigy of the minister at MG Road in Kolkata on Friday.

Mollah, however, apologised for making alleged derogatory remarks against the Marwari community after his party intervened.

"If anyone was hurt by my inadvertent remarks I regret it," Rezzak Mollah said on Friday.

Earlier in the day, the CPI-M had distanced itself from the controversial remarks made by Mollah made at a meeting of left-backed organisations to observe International Language

Day.

"The party does not subscribe to the reported remarks of Mollah about the Marwari community. The party does not have enmity with any community or language. If any community is hurt by such remarks we are sorry," Biman Bose, State Secretary, CPI-M, said in a statement issued in Kolkata on Friday.

The remarks had drawn protests from the All India Marwari Federation, which had demanded an apology from the minister.

(With inputs from PTI)

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