Kolkata, May 2 (PTI) Setting its sights on 2023 panchayat elections in West Bengal, the BJP on Monday held a ‘Ganatantra Pratistha Sankalp’ (resolve to establish democracy) rally in the heart of the city, exhorting party workers to put up a spirited fight in the local body polls.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari iterated that unprecedented atrocities were perpetrated on BJP workers and supporters following the 2021 Assembly polls, and claimed that “the scale of violence post elections had topped the torture unleashed during British Raj”.
“Raising ‘Khela Hobe’ slogan, the ruling party attacked out party workers and supporters, killing several of them and forcing many others to flee homes and move to neighbouring Assam,” he said.
The rally, which marks the beginning of the party’s week-long programmes, coincided with the first anniversary of the Mamata Banerjee government’s third term in office.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah is scheduled to visit in Bengal for three days starting May 4, as part of the programme.
Party national vice-president Dilip Ghosh urged the BJP workers to concentrate on next year’s panchayat elections, asserting that “we will put up a fight in every booth”.
The TMC had registered a landslide victory in last year’s assembly polls, with the BJP having won 77 seats, leaving the Left Front with no representation in the House. The saffron party, however, lost some ground to the Left subsequently during the recently held bypolls and municipal elections.
Seeking to put forward a united face in the wake of TMC’s “sinking ship” jibes, given that many of saffron camp leaders have switched over to the ruling party, BJP state president Sukanta Bhattacharya, national vice-president Dilip Ghosh and Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari led the rally from Subodh Mallick Square to Rani Rashmoni Road in Esplanade.
Among others, Lok Sabha MP Locket Chatterjee, former state unit president Rahul Sinha and Purulia MP Jyotirmoy Singh were also present at the event.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party is a united family… we will not sleep till we defeat Mamata Banerjee,” Adhikari said, addressing the rally in Esplanade.
Alleging that women in the state often face sexual crimes, Ghosh claimed that his government would not be able to continue for long, having failed to provide security to the state’s female population not safe under the current dispensation.
“Women who are given a paltry sum of Rs 500 under Duare Sarkar programme seem afraid to step out of their homes,” he claimed.
Ghosh also said that youths who had voted for Mamata Banerjee are now agitating on the streets for jobs.
He alleged that 56 BJP workers have been killed since the 2021 elections, and 42,000 cases lodged against saffron party workers.
“They shout slogans like Ma, Mati Manush (Mother, soil and people), and commit sexual atrocities on women, sell soil (plots) through the land mafia and people are made to suffer,” Ghosh, the former state BJP president, said.
Urging supporters to work with similar gusto during the upcoming panchayat polls as they did in the assembly elections, he said around 7,000 BJP nominees had emerged victorious in the last local body elections, despite violence and attacks.
The senior BJP leader maintained that all BDO offices and police stations in the state would be gheraoed as part of an agitation programme.
Demanding punishment for “perpetrators of poll violence”, the leader of opposoition alleged that “Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has started a vicious episode in West Bengal”.
“The BJP state leadership will request the central leadership to do whatever is needed for Bengal,” he said.
BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar claimed that more than one lakh families were still waiting to return to homes since the declaration of 2021 election results, “when they were driven out”.
“Since 2018, at least 205 party workers were killed, 123 cases of rape and molestation registered with the Human Rights Commission,” he said.
Majumdar underlined that the BJP would take no time to defeat the TMC, if democratic rules were followed during elections and the ruling party refrained from taking police aid.
“If the administration goes on like this, there will be no industrialisation in the state,” he said.
Hitting out at the CM, who had earlier said that India’s economy was worse than that of cash-strapped Sri Lanka, Majumdar added, “By behaving like Ravana (who lived in Lanka, which is widely believed to be present-day Sri Lanka), you have turned the state into Ravana’s abode.” PTI AMR RMS RMS
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