BJP cancelled Shah's rally fearing flop show, claims TMC

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress claimed on Monday that the BJP leadership has deliberately cancelled its party president Amit Shah's scheduled rally at Baruipur that falls under the Jadavpur parliamentary constituency, apprehending a feeble turnout.

"They themselves have cancelled the rally as they were afraid that the rally might turn out to be a flop show," TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee said.

The saffron party had earlier alleged that the TMC-led government in Bengal had denied permission to land Shah's chopper in Baruipur for addressing the election rally. "The allegations are completely baseless. We had nothing to do with it," Chatterjee added.

According to local sources, the land owner who had rented out his property for the meeting, withdrew his consent at the last minute. Following the cancellation of the rally, clashes broke out between the workers of BJP and TMC in Baruipur.

A senior TMC leader of the district said: "The BJP workers ransacked one of our local offices and attacked our party men." A huge police contingent was stationed in Baruipur to thwart any untoward incident.

Baruipur Purba and Baruipur Paschim are two Assembly constituencies under the Jadavpur parliamentary constituency, which along with eight other parliamentary constituencies are going to polls on May 19.