New Delhi: West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said on Friday that a group of people have hatched a conspiracy to assassinate her and that supari killers (professional assassins) have been hired for the job. The chief minister also said that she had prepared a political will that mentions names of leaders who will take charge of her party, the Trinamool Congress, in her absence.

This was the first time Banerjee made such a statement. Top officers of the state police refused to comment and did not want to be quoted on this issue.

“The killers have even made a recce of my home at Kalighat. I came to know of this because I am part of the administration. The police asked me several times to shift to a safer location but I refused. I am not scared of dying. If I live behind security cover I will start distancing myself from the people,” said Banerjee.

Banerjee lives with her family at her ancestral home in south Kolkata. It is a single storey house located beside a narrow road not far from the famous Kalighat temple.

The channel requested Banerjee to disclose names of conspirators but she refused. “I have never spoken about this to anyone. My party leaders do not know of this. Nor does my family. I am disclosing this in public for the first time,” said the chief minister.

“There is a group of people who want me dead. They will go to any extent to see me die because they cannot counter me politically. I will not say who these people are but I have full knowledge of their activities,” said Banerjee.

“Nothing will happen to my party if I die. I have written down the names of those who will run the party in my absence. Everything is sorted,” said the chief minister.