BJP team turned back from Malda station, TMC lashes out.
Malda/Kolkata: A ‘fact-finding’ team of BJP MPs was on Monday stopped from visiting violence-hit Kaliachak by district authorities and turned back from the railway station, intensifying the war of words between the party and ruling Trinamul in poll-bound West Bengal.
MPs Bhupendra Yadav, Ram Vilas Vedanti and S.S. Ahluwalia, BJP member of Parliament from the state, disembarkedfrom Gaur Express at Malda Town station at around 6 am but were asked by the police and district administration officials to go back as prohibitory orders had been promulgated in Kaliachak.
“This act of West Bengal government is condemnable,” Yadav said as the MPs were forced to return by Howrah-bound Shatabdi Express. BJP said its leaders will meet the Union home minister to demand setting up of an inquiry into the violence and also approach President Pranab Mukherjee on the issue.
The Trinamul lashed out at BJP, accusing it of trying to make it a commual incident to polarise voters as assembly elections were less than 100 days away in West Bengal and claimed that the saffron party will fare worse then it did in Bihar.
Violence had broken out at Kaliachak, about 30 km from here, on December 3 over an alleged remark of a BJP leader. Protesters had set fire to a police station and damaged vehicles.
The area has been made out of bounds for BJP leaders since the incident. On January 6, another BJP delegation led by Shamik Bhattacharya, its lone MLA in West Bengal Assembly, was not allowed to visit Kaliachak village.
TMC faults BJP for raking up issue for polls
Trinamul on Monday accused BJP of trying to whip up communal issue ahead of the assembly election in West Bengal. "The situation in Kaliachak, Malda was tense, but never got out of hand. The police handled the issue tactfully. Thankfully, no deaths occurred, no injuries and 10 people have been arrested,”
TMC chief national spokesperson Derek O’Brien said in a statement here.
Dubbing it as a ‘criminal issue’, he alleged that “BJP/RSS, as is their strategy, tried to turn it into communal issue. They did this by trending hashtags on Twitter, sharing year-old photographs and posting irresponsible tweets with the help of its social media army.”
O’Brien said that BJP was trying for the last one week to present “what I call CIN 100, Communally Insensitive Narrative, 100 days before the state goes to polls.” He said, “We now hear that this morning the (BJP) leaders were now stating this was opium/fake currency issue.”
