Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Apr 3: Prohibitory orders were continued and internet services remained suspended overnight in some areas of the communal violence-hit Hooghly district in West Bengal on Monday even as the BJP accused the chief minister Mamata Banerjee of engineering violence and demanded her resignation.
Even though the situation by and large remained peaceful in the violence-hit areas, the BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar was prevented from visiting Rishra by the police eliciting a strong response from the saffron party, which demanded immediate deployment of Central forces in the area..
Addressing a joint press conference with two other party MPs, the BJP’s Hooghly MP Locket Chatterjee also called for the Centre’s intervention and demanded a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the violence.
The incidents of violence that have taken place in West Bengal since Rama Navami are the result of a “pre-planned conspiracy” hatched by Mamata Banerjee, she charged.
The police said the situation in Rishra and Srerampore areas in Hoogly district, where violent clashes broke out during the Ram Navami processions taken out on Sunday was peaceful and under control on Monday and would likely improve in the next 24 hours.
“I am not being allowed to meet my injured party workers. The police are citing the prohibitory orders. The police can at least allow Mahato and me to enter. The police do not want to allow me as they want to hide the truth,” the BJP leader told reporters. Mr. Majumdar, who was accompanied by BJP MP Jyotirmoy Singh Mahto, demanding immediate deployment of Central forces, said the “State police has completely failed to control the situation.” Mahato was seen having heated arguments with the police personnel. “The police are stopping us because we are from BJP but TMC MPs and MLAs are roaming free in the area. The government does not want the truth to come out. The violence was pre-planned,” he claimed.
A Chandannagore Police Commissionerate official said about 12 people were arrested for the clashes. “Things are under control and peaceful. Prohibitory orders are in force and there is heavy police deployment. Security forces conducted route marches at some places of the affected area. There was tension in some areas in the morning. We dispersed the crowds and boosted security,” he said.
Markets were allowed to open for some time and police are keeping a tab on the movement of vehicles, he said. Some BJP workers were seen holding a sit-in near the affected area in Rishra and protesting against the stopping of the party’s convoy on Monday.
Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari (BJP) has blamed TMC for engineering the attack on the Ram Navami rally organised by the BJP. Adhikari, who met injured Pursurah BJP MLA Biman Ghosh at the hospital, told reporters that he wanted to visit the trouble-torn pocket immediately but was not allowed to by the Mamata Banerjee administration which clamped the prohibitory order to prevent him from meeting the affected families.
“I wonder why Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee and other TMC leaders are allowed free access to the area, while opposition leaders are prevented from meeting the terrified local people and BJP party workers,” he said.
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh accused BJP of fomenting trouble in the area. “Action is being taken against culprits, irrespective of their political affiliation or religion. The violence was a pre-planned conspiracy by BJP to disrupt communal harmony and peace in the state. It wants to secure votes at the cost of human lives,” he said.
Debasree Chaudhuri and Khagen Murmu, two BJP MPs from West Bengal, accompanied Ms Chatterjee during her press conference at the party headquarters. “This is the result of a pre-planned conspiracy by Mamata Banerjee to consolidate Muslim votes and to make the Muslims happy,” she said. The Hooghly MP also accused the TMC supremo of playing “appeasement politics” and claimed that “Hindus are under threat in West Bengal.”
Ms Banerjee had claimed on Friday that the BJP, along with other right-wing organisations, was responsible for the Ram Navami violence. “Mamata Banerjee is lying. We want the central government to see this (matter) properly. We are demanding an NIA probe,” the BJP leader said.
“We also want Mamata (Banerjee) to resign as chief minister and home minister of West Bengal,” Ms Chatterjee added.
The heated exchange between the TMC and the BJP comes in the aftermath of communal clashes in Kolkata’s adjoining areas Howrah and Hooghly during Ram Navami processions. A BJP MLA was among those injured in the violence.
Accusing the BJP of engineering the communal violence in Howrah, Mr Banerjee on Friday released a video from a religious procession in which a young man was seen holding a firearm. Jai Shri Ram slogans can be heard in the background before an announcer stresses that the temple for Lord Ram will come up in Ayodhya.
“BJP’s DANGABAJI FORMULA at work again: Provoke & instigate communities against each other. Supply weapons to incite violence. Create communal tension deliberately. Reap political benefits. A classic unholy blueprint right out of the @BJP4India playbook!,” Banerjee captioned the video post.
The BJP has now alleged that the video posted by Banerjee, also Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, is not from the Howrah rally that was organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. “VHP, the organisers of the Ramnavami Shobha Yatra in Howrah, release footage and allege that the video posted by TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee is not from their Yatra. He is maligning Hindus and should be investigated for dividing people on religious lines. It is a criminal offence,” the BJP’s Bengal unit tweeted from its official handle.
The communal clash in Howrah broke out when a Ram Navami procession was crossing Kazipara locality. Several vehicles were set on fire and shops were ransacked before police could bring the situation under control. Chief Minister Banerjee has said those behind the violence “will not be spared.”
Taking to Twitter, Majumdar shared several pictures to claim that many of those seen in the Ram Navami rally are known to be close to Trinamool MP and local leader Kalyan Banerjee. “The presence of same faces is prompting questions of a conspiracy,” he tweeted in Bengali.
The communal violence across several parts of West Bengal comes at a time when the ruling Trinamool Congress has stepped up its Muslim outreach following the Sagardighi bypoll setback. The incidents flared up around Ram Navami while Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was sitting on a highly publicised dharna against the BJP-ruled Centre – thus taking attention away from her campaign against the Centre of denying Bengal funds and targeting its leaders using investigating agencies.
Mamata Banerjee had claimed that the BJP hired goons from outside the state to orchestrate communal riots. “Nobody has stopped their processions, but they do not have the right to march with swords and bulldozers. How did they get the audacity to do this in Howrah?” Mamata said, adding that routes had been changed “to particularly target and attack one community.”
However, the West Bengal administration has also come under intense scrutiny for not being adequately prepared given that at least one of the sites that saw violence, Howrah, had seen similar clashes on Ram Navami last year, and was reportedly tense since.
A senior TMC leader admitted the party was worried about minority votes slipping away if the perception gained ground that the state government had failed to ensure their safety. Speaking about the 2021 Assembly poll results, the TMC leader said: “The minorities are afraid of the BJP, and we gained seats in all minority areas where traditionally the CPI(M) and Congress were strong.”
A slip in the minority vote will hit the TMC over and above the damage it has suffered on account of corruption charges and cases against its leaders. Since the loss in the minority-dominated Sagardighi bypoll – a seat it had held for years – Mamata has shuffled around the key Muslim leadership in the party and announced a separate development board for minorities.
However, a senior leader of the TMC said the violence might set the party back. “Minorities are afraid of the BJP but they are also afraid of these riots. Now, a section of the educated among the minorities are saying that under the CPI(M) regime such riots never happened. These are bad signals.”
Following last year’s violence, the CPI(M) had held a peace procession in Howrah, but while local TMC leaders had paid visits, the senior leadership had stayed away. Following the recent violence, when Bengal Cooperative Minister Arup Roy, the local TMC MLA from Howrah (Central), tried to visit the area, his car was ransacked.