Kolkata: Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on Sunday launched a blistering attack on those involved in the violence that ensued at the Kolkata rally on Friday, saying that “anti-national forces” were surfacing across the country again and “divisive forces raising anti-national slogans” will end up in hospitals. Bhattacharya’s statements drew a sharp response from Trinamool, which argued that comments such as these lead to anarchy.Speaking at a Kargil Vijay Diwas programme in the city on Sunday, the state BJP chief said, “Those who raise slogans such as ‘Bharat tere tukde honge’ and ‘Kashmir maange azaadi’ should not return home safe but should be sent to emergency wards of hospitals. The people will ensure they are broken into pieces.”Bhattacharya’s comments came the same day CM Suvendu Adhikari alleged that those behind the violence at the Kolkata rally were “Jamaatis, fundamentalists” and pointed at the possibility of a foreign hand.
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“They (those who caused the violence) are anti-national forces. They are trying to surface again. Communists in India had divided the country. They wanted to break the country in 28 parts. They entered (the rally) through the backdoor,” said Bhattacharya. “This is Syama Prasad’s (Mookerjee) govt, not Babar’s, the law will take its own course,” he added.Friday’s rally saw attacks on journalists. A section of rallyists threw shoes, bottles and some even roughed up mediapeople. The chaos triggered the state to invoke the newly promulgated Goonda Act.Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh condemned the attacks on journalists and said the party had made the right call in not joining the Friday rally and organising a separate one instead. He added, however, that as a “responsible neta”, Bhattacharya should not have the comments he did.“Strict legal action should be taken against those who speak against the country. But sending someone to the hospital for that is anarchy. We cannot give orders to use violence to respond to bad slogans,” Ghosh said, adding, “What is the police for? Matters should go to court.”“It can’t be that you live and eat in India and chant slogans against India. But that doesn’t mean that one can beat such people up and send them to hospitals either. This is a democratic country,” said Ghosh.BJP functionary and Bengal transport minister Arjun Singh blamed CPM for allegedly fomenting “anti-national sentiments”. “CPM thinks we have forgotten their torture. They are mistaken. (Union home minister) Amit Shah ji had said Maoists would meet their doom by March 31. That was done…Let CPM step into the ground now, we will teach them a lesson,” Singh said.CPM functionary Sujan Chakraborty responded to the comments saying: “People understand the reality. They cannot be misled for long.”
