Musclemen sent by the ruling Trinamool Congress on Thursday fought a pitched battle with the BJP workers walking in a procession at Ganesh Chandra Avenue inside the poll-bound Chowrunghee constituency in Central Kolkata leaving at least 20 people injured, police said.
The men in khaki who simply looked the other way when a large gang of Trinamool supporters led by Indranil Kumar the election of party candidate Naina Banerjee attacked a procession led by BJP candidate Ritesh Tewari later said “it was more of a clash rather than an attack.”
However Tewari complained “it was desperate attack by the armed Trinamool goons leaving several of our men injured.” State BJP president Rahul Sinha said “our own candidate was heckled by the election agent of Naina Banerjee and we have lodged a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer asking for action.”
Party’s observer for Bengal Siddharthnath Singh demanded “immediate suspension of the Inspector in-charge or the officer in-charge of the relevant police station for simply standing mute spectators to such a menacing attack on our men and women.”
Naina Banerjee is the wife of Trinamool MP Sudip Bandopadhyay. Chowrunghee goes to by-elections on September 13 and results will come out on September 16.
A visibly furious Sinha said “because the BJP is conducting itself like a responsible outfit no one should consider that we are a weak party.” A complaint had been lodged against Kumar with the appropriate authorities he maintained. However the Trinamool refuted the charges saying it was the BJP which started the attack first. “We were leading procession when the BJP men armed with lathis and other weapons attacked us leading to the skirmish,” Kumar said.
In the recently concluded lok Sabha elections the BJP trailed to the Trinamool Congress by a few thousand votes from this Assembly segment. While the Congress got about 37,000 votes, the Trinamool got about 34,000 votes the BJP polled about 29,000 votes.