Engaged in a frontal battle with the BJP, which has fast come up as the main Opposition party in Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress has vowed to foil the general strike called by the saffron outfitprotesting against the death of two students in firing at Darbhit village of Islampur block in North Dinajpur district.
The BJP has called a 12-hour shutdown in the State on September 26 to protest against the students’ death.
The BJP has alleged that the two students died of police firing last week when the students of a local school were protesting against the appointment of Urdu and Sanskrit teachers keeping the more important departments like science, maths and history vacant.
“The deaths have been caused by the RSS-BJP who sent in their goons,” Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said adding the saffron groups were trying to politicise and communalise the issue.
“The RSS-BJP are responsible for the deaths as their masked goons and not the police fired at the students,” Banerjee who was presently in Italy to attend a business meeting said, adding “there will be no bandh in Bengal. We will not allow any shutdown in our State. All the offices, educational and other institutions will remain open on Wednesday. No one will be allowed to hold the State to ransom.”
Sources said the Chief Minister had instructed the police administration to take pro-active steps to stop BJP from forcing the bandh.
“I have told the police brass to take necessary action against who will try to create nuisance. There will be no bandh in Bengal,” she said while State Education Minister Partho Chatterjee said Trinamool Congress cadres will also descend on the streets to assist the administration in ensuring peace.
“TMC workers will take part in peaceful rallies in all parts of the State and help the administration to keep all institutions open,” Chatterjee said.
Warning the saffron organisations "not to play with fire by doing politics on the issue", she appealed to the people of the state not to pay heed to the politics of the BJP and the RSS and foil the shutdown.
Comparing the BJP and RSS with vultures waiting for a death in order to gain political mileage Banerjee said “they have started playing holi with the blood of the people of Bengal, but we will allow thatculture to come to this State. “Saffron communalism is not acceptable in our State.”
She said that the whole matter was pre-planned to give it a communal angle.
“When we appoint Sanskrit teacher there is no problem but when we appoint Urdu teacher they are creating problem by inciting the poor villagers.”
North Dinajpur SP Sumit Kumar said the deaths were caused not on account of police firing. Meanwhile, the villagers refused to burn the corpse. Instead they buried the two bodies demanding repeated post-mortem and a CBI investigation into the killings.
The Left Front that had earlier called bandhs in local schools demanded judicial inquiry into the incident.