Team News Riveting
Kolkata, September 13
Senior BJP leaders including Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, Rahul Sinha, and Member of Parliament Locket Chatterjee were detained by the West Bengal Police ahead of the ‘Nabanna Cholo’ (march to secretariat) organised by the party today.
The main opposition party, BJP had staged the massive ‘Nabanna Cholo’ march in protest against alleged serious corruption by the TMC-led government in West Bengal. Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, was detained while attempting to visit Santragachi during the protest in front of the state secretariat ‘Nabanna’. Other BJP leaders including MP Locket Chatterjee and party leader Rahul Sinha, Taapshi Mondol, and Dibankar Gharami were also detained and taken away in a prison vehicle.
A large number of BJP workers from all over the state reached Kolkata and neighboring Howrah to take part in BJP’s ‘Nabanna Chalo’ march on Tuesday. The West Bengal Police denied permission for the rally and stopped many BJP workers from participating in the rallies. It also arrested thousands of BJP workers.
Sukanta Majumdar, the Bengal BJP head, charged that the police acted like Trinamool Congress cadres.
BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari criticised the Police action and slammed the Mamata Banerjee-led government for deliberately trying to crush a democratic political event. “The barricade of steel raised at Santragachi symbolizes her anxiety and timidity. Remember this Mamata Banerjee, no wall can stand up to the wave of democracy, it would be breached sooner than later,” Adhikari tweeted.
“CM Mamata doesn’t have the support of her people and so she is enforcing dictatorship, similar to North Korea in Bengal. Police will have to pay for what it’s been doing since yesterday, BJP is coming”, the Leader of the Opposition added.
After the West Bengal Police detained several BJP leaders ahead of the rally, BJP workers started the marches from Howrah Maidan and College Street. The workers from Santragachi clashed with police as they reached the Police headquarters in the Lalbazar area. Police used water cannons and lobbed tear gas shells at the protesters to disperse them. It also used force and lathi-charged BJP workers in Santragachi, Howrah Maidan, Mahatma Gandhi Road, and Rabindra Sarani.
Several BJP workers are said to have sustained injuries in the Police attack. BJP leader Swapan Dasgupta was among them. “They fired tear gas shells and lathi-charged protestors. I got pushed by a policeman. A peaceful demonstration was attacked in this fashion. They also attacked BJP workers in Howrah and Santragachi. This was a march against corruption. This was a march against those looting the exchequer. The initial attack was by police. It looked like a pattern the way police attacked”, Dasgupta said after the attack.
The TMC, in a tweet, said, “BJP4Bengal karyakartas or hooligans?” “Destroying and damaging government property, attacking police personnel, causing chaos and disrupting peace across the state—today’s activities of BJP that brought shame upon the entire nation. We strongly condemn such outrageous behaviour,” the party said in the microblogging site.
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh alleged that the BJP was fomenting trouble under the garb of protest.
“It is part of a bigger game plan to destabilise West Bengal this festive season. This is not democratic movement. This is goondaism,” he added.
