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Abhishek Banerjee to rush to Tripura after alleged attack on youth TMC leaders
Leaders of TMC’s youth wing also alleged that shots were fired and a TMC office was vandalised at Dharmanagar, Tripura’s second biggest town after Agartala.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said he is rushing to Tripura on Sunday following an alleged attack on the party’s youth front leaders by workers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday.
Three TMC youth leaders, Debangshu Bhattacharya, Sudip Raha and Jaya Dutta, who were visiting Tripura to prepare for assembly polls in 2023 and pose a challenge to the BJP, alleged that their cars were stopped and attacked on Ambassa Road.
They also alleged that shots were fired and a TMC office was vandalised at Dharmanagar, Tripura’s second biggest town after Agartala.
The alleged attack took place five days after Abhishek Banerjee was shown black flags in Tripura and a BJP worker hit his car with a bamboo stick. Banerjee went to Agartala after employees of I-Pac, the company formed by election strategist Prashant Kishor, were stopped by the local police from leaving their hotel.
The BJP denied the allegations on Saturday while the Tripura unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the main opposition force in the state, issued a statement condemning the alleged attack.
While Raha and Dutta alleged that they suffered injuries in the face and head, Bhattacharya posted videos on social media that purportedly showed stones being thrown by some youth and a few others who appeared to be wearing uniforms similar to the police. “The attacks took place in the presence of the police. Is there no rule of law in BJP-ruled Tripura?” Bhattacharya said in one of the videos.
BJP leaders in Tripura and Bengal rubbished the allegations, dubbing the alleged attack as staged.
“TMC believes in the politics of violence. Why will anybody want to hurt TMC leaders in Tripura where they have no significance? This is a drama to draw media attention,” said Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh.
“Anybody can come to Tripura to see how the government is performing and replicate the model in Bengal. The BJP was not involved in any attack,” Nabendu Bhattacharya, a BJP leader from Tripura, told a Bengali news channel in Bengal.
Abhishek Banerjee reacted on twitter and posted photos of the youth TMC leaders.
“The GOONS of @BJP4Tripura have shown their TRUE COLOURS! This barbaric attack on Trinamool workers reveals the ‘GOONDA RAJ’ in #Tripura under @BjpBiplab’s Govt.! Your threats and attacks only prove your inhumanity. DO WHAT YOU CAN.. Trinamool will not budge an INCH!” Banerjee said in his first tweet.
In the second tweet he wrote on Saturday night, Banerjee tagged Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb and wrote, “Tomorrow, I am coming to #Tripura to stand by every Trinamool worker who were (sic) brutally attacked by @BJP4Tripura goons today. It is my promise that I shall continue fighting till the very last drop of my blood. STOP ME IF YOU CAN @BjpBiplab! #TripuraDeservesBetter.”
On August 3, the BJP alleged that two of its workers were murdered in Bengal by members of TMC a day after Banerjee, while on a day-long trip to Tripura, posted a video showing BJP workers shouting slogans against him and a man hitting his car with a bamboo stick.
Although Samik Bhattacharya,the Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson said on August 2 that the attack was uncalled for and BJP workers were not involved in it, the issue snowballed when Udayan Guha, a senior TMC leader from Dinhata in north Bengal’s Cooch Behar district, wrote on his Facebook page that BJP workers and leaders in Dinhata would be “well taken care of” after what happened in Tripura. On Saturday, Guha made a similar statement at a party meeting in Cooch Behar.
