Barely a day after the Narendra Modi Government accommodated Mamata Banerjee’s requests promising a Central investment of whopping Rs73,700 crore in Bengal, her partymen from Asansol on Friday returned the obligation by allegedly heckling and preventing Union Minister Babul Supriyo, also a local MP, from entering a local school where he went to inspire students to join the Swahchh Bharat campaign.
A police complaint from both sides was registered at different police stations, sources said. The Trinamool attack was led by Asansol Municipal Corporation chairman Jitendra Tewari who abused him, blocked his convoy and tried to attack his car. According to sources, the singer-MP and junior Minister for Urban Development touring various schools to impress upon students to join the Clean India programme was stopped from entering the JK Nagar High School at Raniganj a few miles from Asansol.
This notwithstanding the fact that “about a month ago I had written to schools here that I wanted to interact with the students on the Prime Minister’s Swachchh Bharat Mission,” the Minister said adding while rest of the schools complied with her requests he was stopped from entering the schools. However, he managed to enter the school following talks with the authorities. But while returning from the school where he got huge applause from the students “Jitendra Tewari and his men carrying their party flags rushed towards my car, pelting stones at my convoy and hurling filthy expletives,” the Minister complained.
While the Trinamool lodged a police complaint against the Minister at JK Nagar police outpost another complaint was lodged against the Trinamool goons at the Raniganj police station. Tewari, however, said the school authorities had requested him to postpone the programme till the admission process was over.
It was not only unusual for a school committee to thwart a Union Minister’s visit but also its reply to the Minister’s letter proposing a visit tended to be politically loaded the Minister complained adding how in its reply the school authorities reminded him of his pre-electoral promises of providing the locals with jobs apart from arranging for a grant of Rs20 lakh for the school in the name of late Prime Minister lal Bahadur Shastri whose grandson Siddharth Nath Singh was a BJP leader and its Central Observer for Bengal.
This was not the first time the Minister had been interrupted in his own constituency. Earlier, in April when he came to contest as a BJP candidate he was not only heckled but false police complaints were filed against him by the Trinamool Congress. Notwithstanding, he won by a healthy margin of more than 75,000 votes.
While the Minister was abused and heckled attacks on BJP supporters continued in various parts of the State. Several ABVP members were injured after they were attacked by the Trinamool Congress Chatra Parishad goons at a college Maynaguri in North Bengal. Down South at Sonarpur some BJP men were injured even as they were attacked by the Trinamool men. Instead of arresting the culprits the police arrested six BJP supporters who were the victims of the attack sources said.