TMC 'pressure' behind tribal women crawling incident in West Bengal: Report

A local TMC leader said that the party leadership wanted a 'show of strength' against the BJP in the state

Three tribal women who were seen crawling from a BJP office to a Trinamool Congress (TMC) one in West Bengal were reportedly made to do so by the TMC leadership as a "show of strength".

Initially, reports had claimed that the women were made to crawl as "penance" for joining the BJP. However, The Indian Express reported that they were never in the BJP but were made to crawl anyway at the behest of a local TMC leader.

The husband of one of the women is a local TMC leader who told the publication that there was "pressure" from "local higher-ups" to counter the BJP in the state.

"I have been with the TMC since 2013. The party has taken action against the person who was responsible. I was under tremendous pressure from local higher-ups, I have nothing more to tell you. But I can tell you that neither my wife nor the other two women have ever been with any other party. We are Christians, how will we join the BJP?," he was quoted as saying by IE.

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While he did not elaborate on who these "higher-ups" were, his narrative goes against that of local Trinamool Mahila Congress chief Pradipta Chakraborty, who claimed that the women were made to do the "parikrama" as they had been "misled" into joining the BJP.

The episode unfolded shortly after the local BJP unit held a programme at Badsankair, around 18 km from Balurghat, on April 6.

The programme was attended by roughly 100 people, mostly women, and the BJP claimed that they had joined the party.

A day later, the three tribal women were purportedly made to crawl from the BJP's local office to TMC's Dakshin Dinajpur district headquarters, and the incident, caught on camera, went viral on social media and caused an uproar.

In the aftermath of the incident, West Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar wrote to President Droupadi Murmu and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, claiming mistreatment of tribals by the TMC.

"Martina Kisku, Shiuli Mardi, Thakran Soren and Malati Murmu…joined the BJP…They belong to the ST community. Today, TMC goons forced them to return to the ruling party and punished them by asking to do a Dandavat Parikrama," Majumdar tweeted on Saturday.

Despite Majumdar's allegations of mistreatment of tribals, the mother of one of the women told IE that they were and would always be with the TMC.

The women, meanwhile, declined to comment on the incident.