Pitched Kolkata battles as police foil BJP’s stir

By Our Special Correspondent

Thousands of BJP supporters and hundreds of policemen clashed in various parts of Kolkata and Howrah on Tuesday as the party took out a protest march towards the state secretariat Nabanna against the alleged scams, reviving the agitation two years ago and corruption involving the ruling Trinamool cadres.

A police vehicle was torched and several supporters of the party and the police were injured.

Police fired tear gas shells, used water cannons and pelted stones on uniformed personnel to disperse BJP protesters who tried to cross the barricades on various roads leading to the state secretariat. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee described the protest as a deflated balloon.

During a violent BJP protest in 2020, a year after the party dramatically increased its number of Lok Sabha seats from two to 18; the police used similar tactics to manage crowds.

Tuesday's protest march was said to be the BJP's biggest since the arrest of former Trinamool minister Partha Chatterjee and its strongman Anubrata Mondal by central enforcement agencies.

Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari, MP Locket Chatterjee, state president Sukanta Mazumdar and former state president Rahul Sinha were stopped and arrested by the police. "She has no support, so she's running a dictatorship like North Korea," he charged.

The BJP claimed that at least 200 of its supporters were injured in police lathi charge, of which 50 had to be admitted to hospitals.

Police said 27 of their personnel were injured during the crowd management and an assistant commissioner of police broke his arm. The agitation brought traffic to a standstill in east and central Kolkata.