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Bengal BJP MLA threatens police over ‘inaction’ on TMC workers: ‘If you don’t mend your ways…’
The MLA’s controversial statement reportedly followed his allegation that police had not taken “proper” action in a case related to the “beating up” of a BJP activist by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) members in the area.
In West Bengal, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) MLA Swapan Majumdar landed himself in a controversy on Saturday for allegedly threatening to set a police station under his constituency on fire, if its officers “do not mend their ways”. The BJP MLA said this while he was addressing a rally in the Ashoknagar area in North 24 Parganas district, news agency PTI reported.
The MLA’s controversial statement reportedly followed his allegation that police had not taken “proper” action in a case related to the “beating up” of a BJP activist by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) members in the area. The MLA alleged that the inspector in Charge (IC) and Officer-in-Charge (OC) of the local police station were harassing BJP workers while allowing TMC activists to carry out “illegal” activities.
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"The IC and OC of Ashoknagar police station listen carefully. Stop indulging in TMC mayhem in your area, and stop arresting BJP activists and common men if they dare to protest the misdeeds of the ruling party. One of our activists had been badly beaten up by TMC members in the area. But you are yet to arrest the offender. We will not tolerate this forever. If you don't mend your ways we will be forced to set the police station on fire one day," PTI reported him as saying.
He further added that "if the IC/OC is seen acting as agents of TMC, beat him up”.
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A purported video of the incident has also gone viral after it was telecast on local TV channels.
Chief spokesperson of the party’s state unit, Samik Bhattacharya, said in the matter that while BJP does not endorse Majumdar’s statement, the MLA’s words were uttered out of “helplessness as the police remained mere spectators when BJP supporters were being attacked by TMC and even persecuted BJP activists”.
West Bengal minister Jyotipriya Mallick said, "the BJP MLA spoke in a language which is so typical of the saffron party leaders”. "BJP believes in loot, arson, vandalisation. Their leaders speak in the language of thugs. We are not surprised but people have rejected them. BJP will have a crushing defeat in the coming panchayat polls," he said, as per PTI.
