Kolkata: Just when the dust appeared to be settling, Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has dropped a bombshell. The Trinamool Congress leader, a member of the Lok Sabha, has said in an affidavit that he had in November 2013 applied to the Union patent authorities for registration of Biswa Bangla, the state government-promoted handicrafts brand, as its proprietor with the consent of the chief minister.

For over three years, the government of West Bengal and Abhishek Banerjee have been competing for registration of the mark, which was designed by the chief minister. In September this year, an arm of the state government challenged Abhishek Banerjee’s application, alleging malfeasance. The state claimed the mark was given exclusively to it for use by its departments.

Abhishek Banerjee was not immediately available for comments. His lawyer Sanjay Basu said though Abhishek Banerjee had made as many as eight applications, most were abandoned or withdrawn. “Abhishek Banerjee did not pursue the applications," Basu claimed, adding that they were filed in the first place to protect the mark from being misused.

One of the co-founders of Trinamool Congress, Mukul Roy, who has recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), kicked up a furore earlier this month when he alleged in a public rally that Abhishek Banerjee had secured ownership of Biswa Bangla. By then, the patent body had already advertised the mark in its official journal, acknowledging the Trinamool Congress leader’s claim to it. But registration wasn’t granted yet.

In a letter dated 2 November, which reached the Trademarks Registry in Kolkata on 13 November, Abhishek Banerjee said he was withdrawing all claims to Biswa Bangla.

Alongside, he sued Roy for defamation and in his affidavit, said that he had applied for registration of the Biswa Bangla mark as its proprietor with the “approval" of the chief minister “to protect (it) from being misused or copied". He did not do so with the aim of “deriving any personal gain". “The intention was to have the application for registration made in (Abhishek Banerjee’s) name till such time a state-owned institution or corporation is identified to use the trademark for the benefit of the state," the affidavit said.

Abhishek Banerjee staked claim to Biswa Bangla in November 2013, but the state has claimed in its opposition to his application that it has been using the mark “exclusively" from September 2013 and that it has spent “huge sums of money" to promote it, resulting in “exponential growth (of the mark’s) reputation and goodwill".

In the wake of the controversy kicked up by BJP’s Roy, home secretary Atri Bhattacharya said Biswa Bangla, “the most representative mark" of West Bengal, was assigned to the state government under an agreement in 2014. In September, the state government had said in its opposition to Abhishek Banerjee’s application that he had applied for registration of an “identical mark with mala fide and dishonest intention".

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