Trinamool Congress party workers stopped the car of former party MP Sunil Mondal outside the BJP’s state headquarters in central Kolkata and staged a protest on Saturday morning, leading to further escalation of tensions between the two parties ahead of the Assembly elections in the state.
Following the incident, BJP’s national general secretary and West Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya briefed Union home minister Amit Shah about the incident.
“Today TMC workers attacked the car of Sunil Mondal, who is an MP. I briefed the Union home minister about it,” said Vijayvargiya, while addressing a gathering at the BJP office.
TMC’s top leaders said that it was a spontaneous protest by party workers against Mondal since he hadn’t resigned as an MP. Mondal had resigned from TMC before joining the BJP on December 19.
“Have you seen any such protest for Mukul Roy or Suvendu Adhikari who also defected to the BJP? They both had resigned and then joined the BJP. Mondal, however, hasn’t resigned from his MP post yet. It was a spontaneous protest,” said Kalyan Banerjee, TMC MP.
On Saturday, a felicitation event was held by the BJP for the newly inducted leaders including former TMC MP and state minister Suvendu Adhikari. Mondal and other leaders, who recently switched sides, also attended.
At a stone’s throw, local leaders of the TMC, too, set up a stage and organized a rally. The BJP’s state vice president Pratap Banerjee wrote to the Kolkata Police commissioner stating that the TMC event was a provocation and the stage was built with permission from the police.
When Mondal’s car arrived at the BJP office, TMC workers stopped it and staged a protest. Some even lied down the road and showed him black flags. Later, Mondal’s security and BJP workers escorted him to the BJP office.
