Bengal BJP chief warns of retaliation after attack on Union minister's convoy

A day after Union minister Nisith Pramanik's convoy came under attack at Dinhata in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district, BJP state president Sukanta Maumdar on Sunday warned of retaliation.

The saffron party has claimed that TMC activists engineered the attack, a charge dubbed as "baseless" by the state’s ruling party.

Pramanik had on Saturday said that his "convoy was not just pelted with stones but shots were also fired and bombs hurled".

"The entire incident happened right in front of the police, and they just stood like mute spectators," the Union minister of state for home, who was on his way to meet party workers at a programme, claimed.

Asserting that the TMC should remember that the saffron party has a strong base in north Bengal, Majumdar said that BJP workers will retaliate in case of any such attack in future. "The attack on the Union MoS for Home's convoy is proof enough of how dismal the law and order situation is in West Bengal," he said.

Maintaining that the BJP is not in favour of imposition of Article 356 (President’s Rule) in any state, he said that the current state of affairs in West Bengal, however, is prompting his party's state leadership to mull over the option of demanding the same.

"If a union minister of state for home is not safe in the state, think of the plight of the general public in West Bengal," the BJP leader, who is also a Lok Sabha MP from Balurghat in north Bengal, said.

Countering the allegations, TMC spokesperson Santanu Sen said that the BJP, having realised that it is losing political base in Bengal, is trying to "instigate violence" in the state with provocative statements.

"The more they make such statements, the more people will lean towards the TMC for peace and development," the TMC Rajya Sabha MP said. The state BJP has called for a gherao of police stations across West Bengal on Sunday to protest the attack on Pramanik's convoy. Saturday's attack came within a week after TMC staged a daylong sit-in near the residence of Pramanik at Bhetaguri in Cooch Behar, seeking justice for a Rajbanshi youth, who the Mamata Banerjee-led party claimed was wrongly branded as cattle smuggler and shot dead by the BSF.