A BJP fact-finding team on Saturday said ‘Jungle raj’ prevails in West Bengal and the ruling Trinamool Congress will learn its lesson in the next parliamentary polls, drawing a sharp retort from it, which said the saffron party will struggle to win Lok Sabha seats in the state during the 2024 polls. The five-member BJP team, comprising Rajya Sabha MP Brij Lal and former Union minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, visited saffron party workers, injured during its recent march to the state secretariat, in a state-run hospital where they are undergoing treatment.
“We are shocked after getting the first-hand information about the brutal police torture on our peaceful protesters who were going to ‘Nabanna’ to voice grievances of candidates who were deprived of getting school jobs despite having adequate qualifications,” Lal said.
He also said, “It seems that jungle raj prevails in the state, and the police are acting partisanly. There is a reign of autocracy in the state. The TMC will get a befitting reply in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Lal said the party was “proud of its valiant party workers” who have been fighting tooth and nail against the corrupt TMC regime in West Bengal.
“The BJP has been raising its voice against corruption. Our party workers are beaten up and put behind bars as we raise our voices. And we would continue to fight against the corrupt TMC government in West Bengal. Such threats won’t be able to stop us,” he said.
Rathore also said the team will soon submit its report on the police action to party president J P Nadda. Responding to Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s comments on BJP supporters’ attack on a police vehicle during the September 13 protest march to the state secretariat, Lal said the remark showed the “fascist tendency” of the ruling party.
“Such comments will only encourage police and party men to crush any democratic movement with more brutality. This is not the hallmark of a civilised society,” he said. Banerjee had on September 14 said democratic protesters would not torch a police vehicle or assault a cop who had only a walkie-talkie in his hand. He was talking to reporters after visiting Assistant Commissioner of Police Debjit Chatterjee, who was injured during the rally, at SSKM Hospital.
BJP supporters had on Tuesday fought pitched battles with the police, threw stones at them, torched a vehicle, and damaged a kiosk, while the cops used batons and water cannons to disperse the protesters. Several persons from both sides were injured in the melee. Apart from Lal, the former DGP of Uttar Pradesh, and Rathore, Rajya Sabha MP Samir Oraon, Lok Sabha MP Aparajita Sarangi, and Sunil Jakhar, a BJP leader from Punjab, are other members of the delegation.
Senior TMC leader and state Industry Minister Shashi Panja accused the BJP’s fact-finding team of instigating political violence in the state. “What happened on September 13 was hooliganism and vandalism by the BJP workers. We condemn it. The fact-finding team is uttering lies and instigating political violence in the state. The team should have also visited the police officer who the BJP workers brutally beat up,” Panja said.
TMC state spokesperson Kunal Ghosh described the visiting saffron party leaders as “political tourists”. “They are here to support hooliganism in the name of protests. They want to create instability in West Bengal which will never succeed. They will struggle to win seats in the next Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
Everyone knows the “way BJP activists vandalised state properties and attacked police personnel who were on duty”, Ghosh said. “They went on a rampage at several points on their way to Nabanna. Police had exercised maximum restraint, and this was pointed out by our leaders Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee,” he added.
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