Chaos at BJP rally in West Bengal’s Nandigram; stampede averted
ByHT Correspondent | Edited by Sparshita Saxena, Kolkata
Jan 09, 2021 03:47 AM IST
“This was definitely a conspiracy to foil the event. There could have been a stampede as people had started running helter-skelter without realizing what was going on,” said BJP state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar who was one of the speakers.
A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rally at Nandigram in West Bengal’s East Midnapore district was disrupted by chaos when some outsiders allegedly threw stones at a section of the audience when the party’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya was in the middle of his speech.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kailash Vijayvargiya speaks to media during counting day of Bihar Assembly polls, at party HQ in New Delhi. (PTI)
“This was definitely a conspiracy to foil the event. There could have been a stampede as people had started running helter-skelter without realizing what was going on,” said BJP state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar who was one of the speakers.
A huge canopy had been set up to accommodate the BJP supporters. Other leaders who addressed them were BJP state president Dilip Ghosh, national vice-president Mukul Roy and Nandigram’s former Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator Suvendu Adhikari who joined the BJP on December 19. Adhikari resigned from the legislative assembly last month.
In their speeches, the speakers targeted chief minister Mamata Banerjee and called for a change in regime in Bengal. A long and violent movement against acquisition of farmland in Nandigram by the erstwhile Left Front government had helped Banerjee oust the Marxists in 2011.
“Suvendu addressed the people and calmed them down,” said Majumdar.
Although the BJP leaders accused ruling party workers of pelting stones, some BJP workers told local journalists that the chaos was triggered by slogans raised against a local TMC leader who came to join the BJP.
Several TMC leaders and workers from East Midnapore joined the saffron camp at Friday’s rally.
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News/Cities/Kolkata News/ Chaos at BJP rally in West Bengal’s Nandigram; stampede averted