In a grim reminder for the Election Commission of India that comingAssembly elections in the State could be splattered in blood, supporters of Trinamool Congress and the BJP clashed at three places with rods and brickbats during a three-km saffron rally led by Suvendu Adhikari and Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh in South Kolkata.
The incident tended to mimic the December 10 attack on NJP president JP Nadda’s convoy at Diamond Harbour with a group of Trinamool supporters captured on camera throwing brickbats at the BJP rally passing down the SP Mukherjee Road some two km away from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence.
The initial attack by the TMC men sparked the clash when the BJP men counter attacked, sources said. “The BJP workers then chased them right inside their mohalla (locality) and beat them up,” sources said adding the clashes took place near Charu Market, a few hundred yards away from the Tipu Sultan Mosque. The police rushed to the spot and controlled the crowd, sources said.
Subsequently the TMC men too gathered at different places and attacked the BJP men who were returning from the rally. A number of people were injured in the skirmish, sources said adding motorbikes and some shops were also vandalized.
Reacting to Monday’s incident Adhikari a former Bengal Minister said “we had obtained the necessary police permission for this rally but still they made a scanty police bandobast making room for some TMC men to mount the attack… it was a pre-planned attack as a few men were seen pelting stones before disappearing inside the lanes…But these tactics will not work because people of Bengal are with us and they want a change.”
Bengal Minister Arup Biswas however blamed the BJP workers “who came from outside and attacked our men who were just fixing party flags for future political programmes.”