KOLKATA: Union Minister and West Bengal BJP President Sukanta Majumdar on Friday alleged that he was obstructed by the police twice in a row on the same day.
Dr Majumdar accused Kolkata Police of resisting BJP’s attempts to observe ‘Pashchimbanga Divas’ by trying to stop a two-wheeler rally led by him from reaching Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's residence on Elgin Road in south Kolkata.
Later, he was stopped again while on his way to meet a doctor at the latter's residence in the Bhowanipur area. When the doctor, identified as Rajat Subhra Banerjee, went down the road to meet the Union Minister, he was also picked up in a police car. Both were detained and taken to Lalbazar, the Kolkata Police headquarters.
Protesting “the repressive behaviour of the autocratic Mamata Banerjee Government”, the state BJP has called for blockades, demonstrations, and movements in every district centre today and tomorrow.
Notably, Dr Rajat Subhra Banerjee had last year asked a few questions to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during an interaction at Kellogg College in London regarding the present situation in West Bengal. According to political observers, the incident had put the state government in an awkward position.
Before getting into the police car on Friday, Dr Majumdar said, “I don’t know why we were detained. This doesn’t happen anywhere in the world.”
Earlier in the day, a face-off between BJP Yuva Morcha activists and Kolkata Police occurred in Bhowanipur outside the residence of Jan Sangh founding member Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.
BJP workers had assembled there to pay their respects to the leader and then planned to proceed to nearby Netaji Bhavan, the residence of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Later, a small team of BJP workers led by Dr Majumdar reached Bose’s residence on two-wheelers and garlanded the leader’s bust outside the house.
For the past two years, a political slugfest has continued between the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government and the main opposition party, the BJP, over the observance of ‘Pashchimbanga Divas’, the statehood day.
While the West Bengal government has identified Poila Baisakh, the Bengali New Year’s Day, for celebrating ‘Pashchimbanga Divas’, the state BJP has, on the basis of a central notification, earmarked June 20 for the observance.
On June 20, 1947, the Legislative Assembly of then undivided Bengal voted in favour of the partition of the state between East and West Bengal, which paved the way for the creation of India and Pakistan.