Mamata Banerjee has  rediscovered her erstwhile agitational avatar as she hails fire and brimstone on the Centre, claiming that the CBI was being used to target her.

She said as she started a 'Satyagraha Dharna',  “I can assure....I am ready to die but I am not ready to bow down before the Modi government and we won't allow imposition of Emergency...please save India, save democracy, save the Constitution.”

Of course, like politicians of all ilk, Banerjee has collective amnesia and it wasn’t so long ago – 2013 to be exact – when Banerjee fired the city’s top cop  Ranjit Kumar Pachanda , for allegedly not toeing the TMC line.

Banerjee had sacked the police commissioner after the murder of a sub-inspector in Garden Reach at the hands of a worker considered closed to a TMC councillor, an incident captured on television.

Banerjee had even claimed in 1998 that Ranjit Kumar Pachanda ‘had bitten her, torn her saree and blouse and dragged her during a protest’.

It was a surprise when Didi decided to continue with him as top cop when she came to power in 2011. In 1998, Panchanda had led a police force under Left-ruled Bengal which dragged Banerjee from South Kolkata’s Bedi Bhawan.

The two appeared to get along until the murder of a sub-insepctor in broad daylight which was linked to a TMC concillor.

The killer was seen on camera. The incident led to much criticism about the law and order in the state.

Allegations were rife that under pressure from TMC councillor Mohammad Iqbal, the culprit was allowed to flee.

Footage also showed Iqbal threatening a policeman and even though he was named in an FIR, he wasn’t arrested.

Iqbal who was eventually arrested later claimed he was asked to flee by party leaders. He was arrested in Bihar 23 days after the murder in broad daylight.

Banerjee, who was in Digha during the violence, returned and immediately shunted out Pachnanda to a less significant post of ADG (Security).

Banerjee claimed she had to take action because ‘criminals were not arrested in time’. Others claimed Pachnanda was done in because he took a personal initiative to catch the shooter, considered a close associate of Iqbal.

Pachnanda went on leave and refused to accept the posting and to add salt to his wounds, the state government later gave him a new boss, a move seen to humiliate the former top cop.