TMC men attack BJP workers over statue row

Alleged Trinamool Congress cadre raring to realise Mamata Banerjee’s dream of a clash-less Bengal on Thursday did to their BJP counterparts what they have been doing to the Marxist comrades for the past seven years: Beating them black and blue in broad daylight even as a helpless police force conveniently looked the other way.

The Trinamool men who publicly chased and mugged the saffron cadre were provoked by the BJP’ desperation to consecrate the statue of party ideologue Shyama Prasad Mukherjee vandalised and defiled by a group of extreme Leftists who vented their ire on Mukherjee’s bust a day after alleged saffron followers pulled down the statue of Marxist icon V.I. Lenin near Agartala in Tripura.

Even as a procession led by State BJP president Dilip Ghosh neared the CR Das Park at Keoratala to consecrate Shyama Prasad Mukherjee’s statue with milk and Ganges water hundreds of Trinamool supporters pounced on the BJP, locals said adding “even women and aged were not spared.”

“We are not criminals. We were just proceeding to perform a lawful act to consecrate the bust of one of India’s greatest icons but Mamata Banerjee’s police stopped us from doing so. Not only this they allowed the Trinamool goons to beat up our workers,” Ghosh who abandoned the programme and demanded an immediate proposal from the Government to refurbish Mukherjee’s statue “failing which we will start a Statewide agitation from tomorrow.”

Notwithstanding who received the jolt about 27 BJP supporters were arrested by the police, sources said.

Banerjee who was at the time delivering a speech somewhere else said her Government never supported the idea of breaking statues of great men “be it Lenin, or Hochi Minh or Ambedkar or Periyar or for that matter Shyama Prasad Mukherjee,” and “our Government will resist such acts of violence.”