Political opponents hired killers to assassinate me, says Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday claimed that some political parties have paid contract killers to assassinate her and that she had already readied a ‘political will’ on who should lead the party after her death, reports IANS.

Banerjee, who had founded the ruling Trinamool Congress back in the late nineties in opposition to the leftist parties in West Bengal, made the startling revelation in an interview to a Bangla television channel "Zee 24 Ghanta'.

“I have the information, some political parties…I am not naming them, are trying to kill me but I am not scared,” she said.  

Banerjee said that the contract killers, who have been paid advance, have staked out her office, residence and other nearby places.

Banerjee complaining that she was the daily victim of a barrage of insults and attempts at character assassination and that the conspirators had hatched a plan to first assassinate her character before eliminating her physically.

“The investigation is ongoing,” she said, saying that police had advised her to move out of her home and shift to a secure government bungalow.

Banerjee lives in the single-storey house on south Kolkata’s Harish Chatterjee Street, where she had lived before she became chief minister. Securing her home has long been considered a security challenge by police.

Banerjee said she had written a ‘political will’ in case of her murder which would ensure her party would not fall apart.

"In my absence, who will run my party, who will run the government, that's all written down. I have an emergency plan in place," the chief minister said.