Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kalyan Banerjee, who sparked a controversy last week for ostensibly mimicking Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, has purportedly imitated him once again while maintaining that mimicry is an “art form” and that he has a fundamental right to expression.

Video clips of the suspended TMC MP ostensibly mimicking the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha on the steps of the new Parliament building were aired on television and circulated on social media platforms on December 19. In the clips, the Lok Sabha MP from Serampore was seen surrounded by several other suspended parliamentarians, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was seen making a video as he conducted a mock sitting of the House. Hours later, Dhankhar sternly criticised the act, calling it a personal attack on him and said that the “institution of Chairman has been ravaged”.

“Mimicry is nothing new. It is an art form. If someone doesn’t understand humour and art, what can I do? If someone doesn’t have the education, if someone does not have a cultured mind, if someone identifies himself as the target, I am helpless,” Banerjee said while addressing a political rally at Serampore in Hooghly district on Sunday.

“Right to expression is a fundamental right. Sir (Dhankhar), you are a lawyer. Mimicry is an expression. It is my fundamental right. Nobody can destroy it. Right to dissent and protest is also my fundamental right… I know you can send me to jail. But you can’t stop me from protesting. You can conspire and murder me, but I will not stop protesting,” he added.

Slamming Dhankhar for getting upset over a “trivial issue”, Banerjee said: “He is crying so much day and night over a mimicry. This is so childish. What is this? It is like a child who goes to a teacher complaining about a classmate…It is okay. Let this continue. I have no problem.”

“You are holding a Constitutional post. Why do you keep on seeing ‘look at me, look at me’? Look at the country. This is unthinkable. How low will you stoop? How much you want to appease Narendra Modi and the BJP?,” he asked while purportedly mimicking the Rajya Sabha Chairman again.

Banerjee questioned whether such a mimicry was done for the first time. “We have seen mimicries multiple times outside the Lok Sabha. But inside the Lok Sabha, the person who did mimicry for the first time was [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi. Did you all see it? If you have not, I will install LED screens to show how he did mimicry… We never took it (Modi’s mimicry in Parliament) seriously. We were all smiling that day. We took it lightly. There is also a mimicry done by Nirmala Sitharaman. I can also show it,” he said while purportedly mimicking the Prime Minister.

Banerjee also referred to Dhankhar linking caste to the alleged insult he was subjected to and asked when Olympian Sakshi Malik levelled charges of sexual harassment against BJP parliamentarian Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Dhankhar never said a word. “Why was a farmer’s daughter sexually harassed?“

The Bharatiya Janata Party, however, hit back at Banerjee.

“The people of West Bengal know Kalyan Banerjee. They also know very well whether he has any courtesy and etiquette. Now the people of India have seen it. His ill-mannered behaviour is now for everyone to see. There is no way to hide it,” BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.