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TMC, BJP spar over tribute to Nandigram police firing victims
Though the violent movement against the then Left Front government’s bid to acquire land for a chemical hub is seen as one of the factors that ensured Mamata Banerjee’s historic victory in 2011, Adhikari, her protégé-turned-adversary, refused to acknowledge the TMC’s role in Nandigram.
Fifteen years after 14 villagers from East Midnapore district’s Nandigram died in police firing on March 14, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders got involved in a tussle on Monday over paying homage to the victims of the anti-land acquisition movement that rocked the Left Front government.
Months after defeating chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the Nandigram assembly seat, forcing her to get re-elected from Kolkata, leader of the opposition in the Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Monday washed the decade-old martyrs’ column with water before placing a wreath because TMC leaders had visited the site hours before him.
“TMC leaders cannot claim credit for the success of the movement. They have no right to pay their respects to the victims. People of Nandigram fought their own battle. I witnessed this as a son of the soil,” said Adhikari who resigned from the state cabinet and joined the BJP in December 2020.
Though the violent movement against the then Left Front government’s bid to acquire land for a chemical hub is seen as one of the factors that ensured Mamata Banerjee’s historic victory in 2011, Adhikari, her protégé-turned-adversary, refused to acknowledge the TMC’s role in Nandigram.
Adhikari, who was a local TMC leader in 2007, addressed a gathering on Monday. He claimed that he and members of his family, who hail from East Midnapore’s Contai, helped the movement.
He could reach the site of the martyrs’ column only after TMC workers vacated the area.
TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh and Rajya Sabha member Dola Sen placed wreaths at the column.
“Adhikari should not come here. Many of the victims were Muslims. How can a man who spreads hatred against Muslims pay homage to them?” asked Ghosh.
The face-off took place two days after the BJP’s former state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar, who recently joined the TMC, alleged that Adhikari won the Nandigram seat through malpractice.
On Monday, Ghosh called Adhikari a traitor and accused him of creating a Hindu-Muslim divide during the March-April poll campaign last year.
