BJP team sent back from Malda station

BJP MPs Bhupendra Yadav, Ram Vilas Vedanti and SS Ahluwalia, the lone BJP member of Parliament from the state, disembarked from Gaur Express at Malda Town station at around 6 am but were asked by the police and district administration officials to go back as prohibitory orders had been promulgated in Kaliachak. 

“This act of West Bengal government is condemnable,” Yadav said as the MPs were forced to return by the Howrah-bound Shatabdi Express. BJP said its leaders will meet the Union Home Minister to demand setting up of an inquiry into the violence and also approach President Pranab Mukherjee on the issue. 

The Trinamool Congress lashed out at BJP, accusing it of trying to make it a communal incident to polarise voters as assembly elections were less than 100 days away in West Bengal and claimed that the saffron party will fare worse than it did in Bihar. 

Violence had broken out at Kaliachak, about 30 km from here, on December 3 over an alleged remark of a BJP leader. Protesters had set fire to a police station and damaged vehicles. 

TMC chief national spokesperson Derek O’Brien said in a statement here, “BJP/RSS, as is their strategy, tried to turn it into communal issue. They did this by trending hashtags on Twitter, sharing year-old photographs and posting irresponsible tweets with the help of its social media army.” 

TMC, he said, believed in working for people irrespective of community, caste or creed. “Our focus is on development.”