Bhartiya Janata Party leader Tejasvi Surya on Thursday hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee after a clash between saffron party workers and Kolkata police during a protest. Surya, who is the national president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, said that it was a black day as rule of law was murdered in the eastern state.
Clashes erupted at several places during the march called by the BJP's youth wing to Nabanna, the state secretariat. Visuals show that the agitators tore down barricades. The BJYM had called for a protest in Kolkata on Thursday against the killings of the party workers under Mamata Banerjee's rule. According to the state government, the BJP's march to the state secretariat was carried out without permission and it was held against permissible parameters of the Pandemic Act.
Lashing out at Banerjee, Surya said, "It's a black day today. Democracy and constitutional rule of law were murdered by Mamata Banerjee govt in broad daylight today. India's most corrupt govt is in West Bengal. Unemployment is rising due to this syndicate and cut money government."
"A youth who raises voice against this is politically murdered. In the past two years over 120 BJP and BJP Yuva Morcha workers have been murdered in a barbaric and callous manner in the state...This is my first protest, we will throw this govt out," the Lok Sabha MP from Bengaluru South said.
Parts of Kolkata and adjoining Howrah resembled a battle zone on Thursday as BJP workers and supporters clashed with police, hurling stones and blocking roads with burning tyres, to protest a string of killings of saffron party workers.
"We stand with the people of Bengal despite the brazen misuse of state power by Mamata didi. Our brave BJP Yuva Morcha ‘karyakartas’ compelled her to close the Secretariat. This is an admission that she has lost public confidence," Nadda said.
Police personnel in riot gear burst teargas shells, beat up agitators, and used water cannons to break up the protests which are still raging in Kolkata and Howrah.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad condemned the "barbaric treatment" of his party workers by police in West Bengal.
“There is no democracy in West Bengal. Those who protest against the government are implicated in cases or harassed by police or murdered,” Prasad told reporters at the party’s headquarters in Delhi.
"I would like to say to Mamata Banerjee and her party that if they think they can stop BJP's progress in West Bengal by lathi-charges and atrocities by the police, I assure them, they would fail in their attempts," he added.
He asserted that Banerjee and her party are resorting to violence as they are losing political ground in the state and said that there is feedback from the ground that the BJP will form the next government in West Bengal.
"Is protest allowed in Mamata Banerjee's reign? People who raise their voice against her party are killed. The only reason behind this is TMC losing their political ground in the state," Prasad said. He claimed that 115 party workers have been killed in the state.
West Bengal will go poll early next year. The BJP wants to project it as an alternative to Trinamool Congress which is ruling the state since 2011.
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