"Don't insult me after calling me here," Mamata Banerjee said
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee erupted in fury at Kolkata's Victoria Memorial on Saturday evening - at an event to honour legendary freedom fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on his 124th birth anniversary - after she was faced with chants of "Jai Shri Ram".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar were also on stage for the shocking treatment of the Bengal Chief Minister - one of the few times that the Prime Minister and Ms Banerjee have shared a platform.
"Don't insult me after calling me here. This is not a political programme. If you invite someone to a government programme, you should not insult them," a visibly angry and upset Ms Banerjee admonished the crowd before cutting short her speech.
A seemingly unperturbed Prime Minister Modi spoke shortly afterwards and began by referring to the Chief Minister as "behen (sister) Mamata".
The heckling and chanting, particularly of "Jai Shri Ram", that greeted Ms Banerjee this evening were a sobering reminder of the shrill and vicious election rhetoric that has dominated Bengal politics since the 2019 Lok Sabha election - when the above chant was unleashed.
BJP supporters routinely heckled and taunted senior Trinamool leaders, including the Chief Minister, with the chant.
In June last year, Ms Banerjee said that while respect slogans invoking Lord Ram, she had a problem with the BJP using them in a "misconceived manner by way of mixing religion with politics".
"This is a deliberate attempt to sell hatred ideology through vandalism and violence, which we must oppose together. One can fool some people sometimes, but cannot fool all the people all the time," a Facebook post by the Chief Minister read.
