BJP Workers Irked After Release of Candidate Names for West Bengal Polls- Mobs Plunder Party Offices across the State

BJP Election candidate list release draws the wrath of mobs; learn more…

Tuesday, 16th March 2021

The election office of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kolkata had a massive demonstration before it on Monday, 16 March with party workers protesting the BJP’s list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal.

Senior leaders of the party including Mukul Roy, Arjun Singh and Shiv Prakash were even jeered for the choice of candidates who mostly happen to be former leaders from the Trinamool party.

Hundreds of protestors including men and woman took to the streets and were seen agitating from Hastings in Kolkata. They were in complete disregard of police barricades and were seen kicking, jostling, pushing and screaming to find their way into the party’s election office. There was heavy deployment of police force to keep the mob under control and managing the situation which escalated by the minute.

According to sources, several other offices belonging to the BJP in other districts of the state were also plundered.

Some of the first protestors had started showing up in Panchla, Howrah. They were seen here sitting in a ‘dharna’ and holding up placards that labelled one of the BJP candidates, Mohit Ghati as a “characterless drunkard”.

The demonstrations were later joined by more agitators from Udaynarayanpur in Howrah and again in the evening there were further additions with crowds flocking in from Raidighi in South 24 Parganas.

Police took to barricading most of the edifices that house the BJP’s offices. However, that did not deter the swarms of people who continued to force their way ahead and into the buildings by attempting to break down the barricades and make way for themselves.

Later the same day, indignant BJP supporters in the Hooghly district plundered the BJP party office at Singur as well as the party headquarters located in Chinsurah district. A group of marauders were seen pillaging an office in Hooghly by smashing windows and making protest cries, in a night visual.

After the sitting Trinamool MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya’s nomination on Sunday, members of the BJP’s work force incarcerated the Madhya Pradesh education and health minister inside a shop in Singur. He was attending a meeting with other party workers there where he stayed locked in for four hours after which he was rescued by the police.

Yet another office in Chinsurah met a similar fate where the BJP put up the name of one of their sitting MPs Locket Chatterjee for nomination.

One BJP leader Joy Banerjee went on to say that he was considering “changing my platform”.

Spokesperson from the party Samik Bhattacharya assured in his statement that although the situation was unfortunate it was short lived.

The last few months have seen a steady flow in the Bharatiya Janata Party of leaders who have crossed over from the rival TMC. A natural consequence of this was to have a contentious party candidate list for West Bengal’s 294 seats.

MP from the Trinamool party Mohua Mitra took to the social media after the 60 names of candidates were released by the BJP for the third and fourth phases of the eight phased upcoming polls. She wrote, “Loving this slow unfolding of the WB BJP Candidate List soap opera. When 'largest global political party' lacks enough faces & strength to announce 294 names in one go for a state it claims it will sweep!”

West Bengal’s polls is scheduled to start on March 27 and will continue till April 29 while the counting of the votes will take place on May 2, 2021.

The News Talkie Bureau

Source:

NDTV

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