When Trinamool Congress MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Parliament recently, Modi told him “he looked well”. Bandyopadhyay, who was in jail for 136 days, replied, “Yes, you would know. You sent me to prison.” The Lok Sabha MP is now writing his prison diaries. The title would revolve around “the idea of banchana (deprivation)”, he says. Bandyopadhyay says he will describe living alongside someone accused of chopping his wife into 300 pieces as well as the “surreal experience” of queuing up for jail food. And, of course, underline the political vendetta behind his arrest. The MP had been arrested on January 3 by the CBI in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund case, and lodged in Bhubaneswar Jail. On May 19. the Orissa High Court gave him bail. His fellow parliamentarian Tapas Pal, arrested in the same case, continues to be in prison. The TMC believes Bandyopadhyay’s book, slated to be released at the Kolkata Book Fair in January 2018, would be a “bestseller”. TMC chief Mamata Banerjee routinely releases her books at the fair. Bandyopadhyay points out that he was not interrogated once during his incarceration — something the High Court observed while giving him bail. “They didn’t come and ask me anything about the case. It was a complete sham, nothing more than arm-twisting,” he says. “Every day in the morning, they would open the gates, and we could walk around the courtyard. That is all Tapas (Pal) and I did. But we both knew that no matter how much pressure was applied on us, that was something we needed to fight politically. This entire matter was ultimately a question of the BJP trying to threaten our existence because they couldn’t take us on electorally,” he says. Recalling another anecdote that he says is part of the book, the MP says, “Narendra Modi once wanted to gift me a suit piece. He knows I like wearing suits and, in fact, we have always had cordial ties. But I rejected the gift. My conscience didn’t allow it, because we were opposing him politically over the rise in communal violence.” Talking about his jail time, Bandyopadhay says his book will include the story of fellow prisoner Somnath Parida, a retired Army doctor accused of killing his wife Ushashree with a torchlight. “The doctor was convicted of murdering his wife and then chopping her body into 300 pieces. The pieces were then stuffed into 22 tiffin boxes which he kept in two iron chests,” he says. After his release, the Lok Sabha MP says, he found he had lost about 15-20 kg. So his book will also talk of “jail cuisine”. “Every day, we were fed the same indistinguishable food. It has been days, but I am still not quite sure what it was that was given to us,” he laughs, talking about how he and Pal would queue up for food. “It was just like what you see in the films, we even had prison clothes on.” The only person with whom he had any real interaction while inside was wife Nayna, Bandyopadhyay says. She had been given permission to see him. “I used to tell her that anyone who is in the Opposition and speaks out against Modi, can land up in jail. That is what the CBI has been reduced to. But I also knew that there is simply no point in trying to come to an ‘understanding’ with the BJP. That is what the Centre wants and they’ve done it with some others. I refused.” A trusted Mamata lieutenant, Bandyopadhyay has been in the TMC since its inception and is among its seniormost leaders. After his arrest, there were attacks on the BJP office in Kolkata, while the TMC also held protests in Delhi and Odisha. Bandyopadhyay says the book is his statement. “What the BJP doesn’t realise is that I have been in politics since Indira Gandhi was the PM. At the time, I was the Bengal Youth Congress leader. I have campaigned with her. Sending me to jail, for something I believe in, will not scare me. The book will have all these details, exactly how we were treated and how it was apparent that there was no reason apart from political gains for our arrest.”
