In what the Trinamool Congress promptly saw a “saffron roadmap to paint Bengal in blood,” two senior BJP leaders from the State on Monday said their party would chart the Uttar Pradesh model should they come to power in order to teach the TMC’s “Tolabaj” (extortionist) and criminal brigade a lesson.
The BJP leaders’ statements came against the backdrop of one more shootout death at Mathurapur in South 24 Parganas where a person was shot dead by alleged TMC goons and three others were received serious bullet injuries during a political clash.
Senior State party leader Sayantan Basu said “if the TMC goons do not chart the right path and come back to their senses then the police will be told to either arrest them or shoot them in encounter.”
Most of these “TMC goons have created havoc in their regions by extorting money from the people and spreading violence,” he said, adding when the BJP would come to power it would follow the UP model. “I warn you TMC goons we will chart the UP model and ask the police either to arrest the goons or if they try to flee away to Bangladesh then simply kill them through encounters before they can cross the border.”
Basu who lost from Basirhat parliamentary seat to TMC’s actress-turned-politician Nusrat Jahan was pulled up by the Election Commission when he appealed to the CRPF to “shoot through the TMC goons chests instead of aiming at their legs.”
Echoing Basu’s statements another State party general secretary Raju Banerjee warned the Trinamool men who were extorting money from the people to “watch out and mend your ways or else when we will come to power we will not stop the police from dealing with you in encounters.”
He said “after BJP comes to power you (TMC goons) will be seen standing in front of your houses with placards asking for pardon and saying ‘spare us and we will never do it again’,” Banerjee said adding “we will not intervene if the police dealt you in encounters.”
Reacting sharply to the BJP leaders’ statements senior Trinamool leader Firhad Hakim said “what they are telling now only speaks of their character … This only speaks about the encounter ideology that their party, particularly their former party president and present Home Minister Amit Shah follows,” reminding, “encounter deaths of Ishrat Jahan and others speak volumes about the BJP’s conduct.” The BJP was a party of killers he maintained.