The Bengal BJP reacted in a guarded manner to the huge judicial setback it received in the Supreme Court which on Tuesday turned down its plea for a four-phase rath yatra covering almost all the 22 districts of the State.
“We had approached the apex court to get our democratic rights that was under serious attack by the Trinamool Congress Government restored but the State managed to put its argument in a successful manner and we lost the case.
“We will honour the Supreme Court judgement but having said so we will continue our struggle for restoring democracy in Bengal,” State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said, adding his party would however, continue to stage dharnas and civil disobedience rallies.
“We will be on the ground staging civil disobedience rallies like we had been doing all these days,” he said, adding his party having failed to extract the order favouring a rath yatra may now consider a padyatras or marches through the districts.
The BJP was likely to hold a grand rally at the historic Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata on January 23. The rally is likely to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said Congress Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge would attend her party’s grand rally at the Brigade parade Ground.
The Trinamool Congress’ grand rally would take place on January 19 and is likely to be attended among others by leaders like Sharada Pawar, Sharad Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, MK Stalin, Tejaswi Yadav, Arvinda Kejriwal. The party is expecting a record-breaking presence of 20 lakh people, several lakh more than the highest recorded earlier in a Left Front rally which was about 15 lakh.