Spontaneous protests broke out in several parts of Bengal after alleged Trinamool Congress supporters attacked State BJP president Dilip Ghosh near his new residence at Rajarhat-New Town, a posh township in the north eastern fringes of Kolkata.
Ghosh alleged that he was heckled by TMC goons who vandalised his vehicle and beat up his party men. The State ruling outfit however has dismissed the charges.
Ghosh a BJP MP from Midnapore had recently changed his residence from Salt Lake to Rajarhat New Town where he was attacked while he was out on a morning walk.
“I keep changing my residence every year. I have come here very recently and was on a morning walk. As usual I was speaking to some people during Cha Chakra --- gossiping over tea cups --- after finishing my morning-walk when some henchmen of the TMC emerged from nowhere and started abusing us… when we tried to reason out they heckled me and my security men and even beat up my party cadres. Even when I had left the place they were attacking my party people,” Ghosh alleged saying party president Amit Shah too called him up to enquire about his well-being.
“He was asking as to how the goons could pierce the security ring to attack Dilip Ghosh,” a local party leader said adding the Centre was taking the issue very seriously.
“Such is the condition that the Government is harassing the person who has rented me the house asking him to produce all his papers, building plans and even summoning him to the Lal Bazaar police headquarters,” Ghosh said.
The incident triggered a spontaneous reaction from other political parties too with Congress Lok Sabha leader Adhir Chowdhury attacking the TMC for “stooping so low as not to spare even as State president of a party.”
The TMC may have ideological differences with the BJP “but that does not mean that a senior leader will be attacked like this. Even I am opposed to the BJP’s ideology but I strictly condemn this attack on the State president of that party,” he said.
CPI(M) central committee member and State Legislature Party leader Sujan Chakrabarty said “TMC is the ideal party to represent lumpen politics,” adding the “attack was another way of popularizing the BJP and its leaders in Bengal… This attack was mounted not for any other reasons but to give Ghosh the publicity —in a minute —for which he would have to toil hard for months.
“When the Left was in power we had stopped BJP from communalizing Bengal. But during Mamata Banerjee BJP has done this very easily. First she tried to bring them directly through an alliance but when she failed she brought them to Bengal in an indirect manner.”
The TMC however denied such charges even as their MP Sudip Bandopadhyay said, “BJP has not reached a stage of popularity in Bengal from where we will have to beat their leaders down. The 2019 general elections was just a flash in the pan and in 2021 you will see where they stand… and they are
staring defeat they are trying to create such kind of drama… the allegation is completely baseless.”
Meanwhile BJP supporters came down on the streets in large numbers in Kolkata—where an attempt to march to the State secretariat was foiled by the police, Coochbehar, Hooghly, North 24 Parganas and elsewhere in protest against the Wednesday’s attack.