BJP holds protest over killing of woman party worker in Bengal's Nandigram

BJP workers burnt tyres, blocked roads and pulled down shutters of shops in Nandigram, alleging that the TMC-backed criminals were involved in the killing of Rathirani Ari (38), who is a saffron party worker in Sonachura village.

Nandigram: After a woman was killed and her son injured in a political clash in Nandigram in the Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday resorted to large-scale protests, claiming that both of them had been supporters of the saffron party and had been attacked by the goons of the Trinamool Congress.

Rathibala Arhi was killed in the attack, which, according to the local BJP leaders, was carried out by the miscreants owing allegiance to the TMC. Her son Sanjay Arhi was among seven others who were injured in the attack. The Election Commission has sought a report from the local administration on the incident.

Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP MLA from Nandigram, accused Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the TMC general secretary, of instigating the attacks on the workers of the saffron party.

Nandigram is one of the assembly segments of the Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency of West Bengal.

Abhishek had visited Nandigram on Wednesday. He had addressed a TMC election rally to plead for votes for the party’s candidate Debangshu Bhattacharya, and called upon the people not to allow anyone to intimidate them and stop them from voting on Saturday. He had particularly asked women to carry kitchen cutters while going to the polling booths to make sure that no one could dare to stop them and scare them away.

Tamluk will go to the polls on Saturday. The BJP fielded former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Ganguly against Debangshu.

Suvendu, now the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, visited the Nandigram Police Station to protest against the murder of Rathibala Arhi, who belonged to the community Scheduled Castes at Sonachura in Nandigram. The BJP heavyweight alleged that the in-charge of the police station had a meeting with the murderers of Rathibala Arhi. He was also seen angrily talking to some of the central paramilitary force personnel.

“Rathibala Arhi was not only Sanjay Arhi’s mother. She was my mother too and we want the criminal to be brought to justice immediately,” said Suvendu.

 The TMC, however, said that the woman had been killed due to infighting within the BJP. “There is a conflict between the old BJP leaders and supporters in the area and the new ones, who joined the party after Suvendu had done so in 2020,” Sheikh Sufiyan, a local TMC leader, said.  

The local BJP supporters burnt tyres, blocked roads, and shut down shops in Nandigram. Additional police and paramilitary forces were deployed in the area to disperse mobs that set ablaze some shops and houses to protest the killing of Rathibala Arhi.

"The bloodshed was a direct fallout of Bhaipo’s (nephew's) provocation in Nandigram yesterday. The murder was orchestrated by the Trinamool (Congress) after realising its certain defeat", Suvendu posted on X.

"The hands of the jihadis do not tremble before hacking a woman to death. The BJP will see this through to its end, exact revenge in a legal manner, and respond by democratic means", he said.