KOLKATA: Despite having only a lone MLA and two Lok Sabha MPs from West Bengal, the BJP is fast emerging as the main Opposition party in the state as it stepped up its agitation against the TMC Government by observing a protest day to highlight the attacks on its workers and sought the direct intervention of Governor Kesari Nath Tripathy to help prevent a further collapse of the state’s law and order situation.
The BJP as well as CPM-led Left Front on Friday submitted a memorandum to the Governor seeking his intervention into the deteriorating law and order as three men were killed in armed clashes between the BJP and the TMC workers on Monday at Makra village in Birbhum district.
After meeting the Governor, West Bengal BJP president Rahul Sinha said, “We have apprised him of the frequent attacks by TMC goons on our workers, how the torture is still continuing at Makra village and our central team was prevented by the police. How can Mamata Banerjee remain state Home Minister when the state police are being repeatedly pulled up and reprimanded by the courts? “We have requested him to visit the area as no political party leader was being allowed to meet the villagers. He has assured us that he would consider our suggestion,” he said.
Leader of Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra, who led the LF delegation to the Raj Bhavan, demanded that all-party-meeting should be convened at all blocks in the state because of the growing violence perpetrated on innocent people by the TMC workers in connivance with the police.
“I have met the delegations, heard them and received their memoranda. I have told them that I will forward it to the state government. It is up to the state government to take action,” the Governor said.
As the BJP central team led by its vice-president Muqtar Abbas Naqvi had been prevented by the police from proceeding to Makra, the saffron brigade got the much-desired weapon against the TMC to “prove” that the rule of law did not prevail in West Bengal and that the democratic rights of political parties had been trampled upon.