How BJP plans to highlight Purulia deaths and push TMC on the back foot

The BJP in West Bengal is planning to push the Trinamool Congress on the back foot by bringing in central leaders to target the ruling party over the recent deaths of its two workers.

Although police have ruled out political connections to the deaths and termed Trilochan Mahato’s as personal enmity and Dulal Kumar’s as suicide, BJP leaders have blamed the Trinamool for “murdering” the two workers.

State leaders have urged party bosses to send a central team to Purulia, where the two bodies were found hanging and where BJP has emerged successful in the recent panchayat polls.

“A central BJP team should visit the district and then hold press conferences in Kolkata and Delhi,”said a BJP Bengal leader who did not wish to be named.

“It would help us in achieving three objectives. One, it would send a message to the ruling party that our national leaders are keeping a watch. Two, it would spread the word across the country that Trinamool Congress supporters are unleashing terrible violence in the state, and three, it would help boost the morale of our workers in the district and the state,” the leader said.

The state’s leaders spoke to national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and joint general secretary (organisation) Shiv Prakash to send such a team to Purulia.

BJP Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh said, “It was clear that professional killers were hired to murder the two workers of our party. (Mamata Banerjee’s nephew) Abhishek Banerjee said he will get rid of the opposition, but we could not imagine they would be finish off opposition workers with bombs and guns.”

BJP president Amit Shah was one of the first to condemn the deaths.

“Distressed to know about yet another killing of BJP karyakarta Dulal Kumar in Balrampur, West Bengal. This continued brutality and violence in the land of West Bengal is shameful and inhuman. Mamata Banerjee’s govt has completely failed to maintain law and order in the state,” Shah tweeted.

MoS, heavy industries, and MP from Bengal’s Asansol, Babul Supriyo targeted other opposition leaders for their silence over the deaths and sought President’s rule in the state.

“Two persons were killed in three days. But there is no reaction from Akhilesh Yadav, or Sitaram Yechury or Rahul Gandhi. Whom else to blame for the violence in Bengal other than the ruling party, the chief minister and those around her? There is only one remedy which is President’s rule in Bengal.”

“You will soon see strong steps,” Supriyo said.

Vijayvargiya has alleged that the local police were “trying to pass off the death of Dulal Kumar as suicide”.

“It is a conspiracy by the Trinamool leaders and the police. His post mortem should be done by a team of five doctors and the proceedings should be videographed,” he said in a tweet.

On a trip to Kolkata, Javadekar too lashed out. “Political murders are taking place in Bengal day in and day out,” he said.

Bengal BJP leaders have been asked to keep the leaders in Delhi posted on every development. Some state leaders also plan to visit the families of the two victims.

On the other hand, Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee said the role of those who are trying to create unrest in the area by bringing in Maoists and saffron elements from Jharkhand should also be investigated.

In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections next year, Bengal has become a high-stake state for the BJP as it aims to win at least 22 of the 44 seats in the state.

Purulia, where the BJP has picked up 645 gram panchayat seats against Trinamool’s 839, has emerged as a theatre of confrontation between the two camps.

With chief minister Mamata Banerjee busy in trying to form a front of regional parties to take on the BJP, Trinamool Congress is unwilling to cede any political space to the saffron party that has already emerged as the main challenger at the expense of the Left and Congress.