TMC leaders visit Nandigram, hold sit-in demonstration

Kolkata: Senior Trinamool Congress leader Shashi Panja along with party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh visited Nandigram on Friday to meet the party cadres who have fallen victims to the atrocities inflicted by the BJP.

TMC leaders held a sit-in demonstration in Nandigram, demanding immediate arrest of the culprits who attacked the party supporters. “The BJP is talking about violence. But the party has unleashed violence in the state and parts of Nandigram. A woman activist of TMC was tied up to a tree and beaten up by BJP goons,” Panja said.

Ghosh said they have urged the police to arrest the culprits within 24 hours failing which a massive protest would be organised. Reacting to Suvendu Adhikari’s allegation that post-poll violence has been taking place across Bengal, Ghosh said it was a created script by Suvendu as he has already claimed that a situation will be produced to persuade the Centre to impose Article 355.

Meanwhile, a four-member BJP fact-finding team to Bengal, led by the former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, has been touring the state for the last two days to inquire about the violence that marked the Panchayat elections.

Trinamool Congress on Friday reacted sharply to Union Home minister Amit Shah’s statement saying: “Failing to fight us fair and square, the BJP had resorted to dirty tricks and had unleashed unspeakable violence on Trinamool Congress workers. Out of the 19 people killed in election-related violence on Saturday, at least 12 were our party workers and candidates.”

Trinamool also gave a list of its party workers who were killed in the violence. “TMC worker, Babar Ali, was killed in Kapasdanga, Murshidabad. A TMC worker was killed in a crude bomb blast in Rejinagar, Murshidabad. Another TMC worker was stabbed to death in Khargram, Murshidabad. A TMC worker, Gautam Roy, was killed after being attacked with bamboo sticks in Nandigram, Purba Burdwan. A TMC booth committee chairman, identified as Ganesh Sarkar, was stabbed to death in Rampur, Coochbehar. The brother of a TMC leader was killed in a clash with Congress supporters in Manikchak, Malda,” reads a press statement issued by Trinamool.

“At least 600 companies of central forces had been deployed and yet our people were massacred. And now HM @AmitShah is basking in his short-lived glory that was earned at the cost of the lives and sacrifices of TMC party workers and candidates? Let us remind him that from South 24 Parganas to Cooch Behar, TMC registered a landslide victory by winning all the 20 zilla parishads in the state. In the other two tiers of the panchayat system, we won nearly 80% (2,641 of the total 3,317) gram panchayats and 92% (313 of the total 341) panchayat samitis,” says the statement.