In a setback to the BJP, the Supreme Court on Monday refused its plea for an urgent hearing against a Calcutta High Court order not allowing its Rath Yatra in West Bengal.
The BJP had challenged last Friday’s order of the Division Bench of the High Court which had set aside the order of a single judge allowing the yatra. The party approached the Supreme Court seeking permission to hold the campaign “Save Democracy Rally”, which would cover 42 parliamentary constituencies in the State ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Meanwhile, in West Bengal BJP workers were arrested and many of them were injured when police resorted to lathicharge on a saffron crowd staging a civil disobedience rally at Basirhat in North 24 Parganas. The police lathicharged the crowd after stones were pelted at them injuring some men on duty, sources said.
“The police beat our workers mercilessly and arrested many of them though stones were not pelted by them. The stones were actually pelted by some outsiders that the police administration should find out,” Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.
Such small incidents were not out of ordinary and it was beyond the strength of the leadership to control such large crowds, Ghosh said apparently not doing any good to his party’s case seeking judicial permission for triple Rath Yatras that have been denied by the State Government apprehending law and order and communal tension.
The BJP has been staging civil disobedience rallies throughout the State against the State Government’s denial of permission of the Rath Yatra. Though the party got a favourable order in the Single Bench of Calcutta High Court that okayed the yatra, the order was set aside by the Division Bench.