Unlock 1.0 saw Bengal returning to its known ways of political clashes with the BJP giving the ruling Trinamool Congress a taste of its own medicine at Nandigram where the cadres of the two parties engaged in a bloody clash on Sunday leaving several persons including a BJP district secretary injured, sources said.
Khejuri block adjoining Nandigram in West Midnapore district witnessed indiscriminate firing, bombing and housebreaking while marauding members from two sides fought with each other while the police looked the other way.
While the police refused reports of firing, Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said Pabitra Das the district BJP secretary and “a very active worker was targeted by the Trinamool Congress goons with guns… he received gunshot injuries and has been admitted in a local hospital.” Some other party men too were injured in the clash, he complained.
Khejuri has been a traditional Left bastion that had recently turned saffron. Das a former CPI(M) local committee secretary who joined the BJP ahead of the panchayat elections was protesting against the TMC-run panchayat’s alleged decision to sell off trees uprooted in super cyclone Amphan without floating tenders.
“Tension ran high in the village with both sides mounting attacks and counterattacks throughout the last week that saw many houses being looted and ransacked and many people getting injured in intermittent clashes,” a local district officer said requesting anonymity.
“This is a government which has literally sold out the entire State to the syndicate wallahs and when our men are protesting they are being attacked with guns and bombs,” Ghosh said in Kolkata adding.
Post lockdown Bengal had witnessed clashes breaking out between the two parties at various places of North and South 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Burdwan and Howrah over issues that were mostly related to corruption.
Khejuri is adjacent to Nandigram that hit national headlines following bloody clashes during a massive land movement led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee (the then opposition leader) and her Midnapore points-man and present Minister Subhendu Adhikary in 2007. The movement eventually catapulted Banerjee to power.
With lockdown gone Bengal has started witnessing sporadic sporadic clashes between the BJP and TMC with the former launching rallies protesting against alleged corruption in providing relief to the people hit by Amphan.
Refuting BJP’s allegations former Union Minister and local Trinamool MP Sisir Adhikary said his party had nothing to do with the clash adding the fight was between BJP and CPI(M) as many Left members were leaving that party to join the saffron group.
“We have our MP, MLA and the panchayat so why should we soil our party’s name in the area by engaging in such fights. I have heard that the clash took place between the CPI(M) and BJP as many Left workers are leaving that party,” Adhikary said.
Meanwhile the TMC has denied reports that the party is going to launch its third virtual rally on July 3 for the next year’s Assembly elections.
This was made known by an official statement from the party that said, “we have been apprised of multiple reports in the media about an upcoming All India Trinamool Congress campaign. This is to clarify that there is no such official party campaign and the news is false.”
Earlier reports said that TMC had decided to launch its third virtual campaign ‘Soja Banglay Bolchi’ (putting straight in Bengali.) much like the earlier ones like ‘Didi ke Bolo’ and ‘Banglar Gorbo Mamata’ campaigns.