New Delhi: The West Bengal BJP has decided to conduct Hindu rituals for nearly 80 of its workers allegedly killed in political violence in the state over the last six years and has invited Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the party’s working president J.P. Nadda to the ceremony.
The state unit has decided to conduct the pind daan (a ritual to appease departed souls) in the Ganga in Kolkata on 28 September.
“We have requested Amit Shahji to be present in a condolence event (tarpan) at the Ganga Ghat for nearly 80 BJP workers killed in Bengal since 2013,” state BJP president Dilip Ghosh told ThePrint. “He said he will certainly try.”
Ghosh and senior BJP leader Mukul Roy had met Shah last week to invite him to the event.
The general secretary of the Bengal BJP unit, Sayantan Basu, alleged that in the last week, one more BJP worker was killed in clashes with ruling Trinamool Congress cadre at Bolpur in Birbhum district, taking the tally of party workers killed in the last six years to 82.
Senior BJP leader of the Bengal unit, Pratap Banerjee, said the party had begun preparations for the event. “We will bring mitti (soil) from 82 villages of the martyrs that will be immersed (pravahit) in the holy Ganga so that the souls of these workers rest in peace,” he said. “Family members of the deceased workers have also been invited for this Pind Daan. BJP workers will start collecting mitti from these villages starting this week.”
Also read: Bengal BJP questions silence of ‘intellectuals’ on political killings of its workers
BJP upping ante in the state
Ever since the BJP dented the Trinamool Congress in the Lok Sabha elections, winning 18 of the 42 seats in the state, it has upped the ante against the ruling party.
The result has chastened the TMC and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to clamp down on the “cut money” issue, in which its leaders were accused of extorting money for welfare schemes.
The BJP has, however, been looking to keep up the pressure through the charges of political killings.
In May, following the Lok Sabha elections, the family members of 40 killed BJP workers were invited to take part in the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi.
In July, the BJP again held a public tribunal of deceased family members at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to “highlight the TMC’s atrocities against its workers”.
With civic elections due in the first quarter of 2020, followed by the assembly elections in 2021, the BJP is looking to make further inroads by capturing the municipal corporations in major cities of the state.
Also read: BJP adds 4 crore members in a month, with a 140% rise in recruitment in Bengal