In the wake of attacks on BJP workers across the state allegedly by Trinamool Congress (TMC) goons, a second team of BJP central leadership arrived in West Bengal on Sunday to access the ground-level situation.
The four-member team is being led by BJP national vice-president and MP Balbir Punj. The other members are party MP Kirti Azad, its central observer for West Bengal Siddharth Nath Singh and its national minority morcha president Abdul Rashid Ansari.
“As per the direction of our party president Rajnath Singh, our BJP central team has come to West Bengal in the wake of regular attacks on BJP workers across the state. We condemn such attacks on our party workers,” Punj said.
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The team will during the day visit Ilambazar in Birbhum district where BJP worker Rahim Sheikh was killed by alleged TMC goons on June 7.
Singh had earlier alleged that attack on BJP workers was due to the party’s ‘spectacular performance’ in Bengal in the Lok Sabha polls and increase in its support base in the state, which, he claimed, had sent ‘shock waves’ within ruling TMC.
State BJP general secretary Shamik Bhattacharya and state party spokesperson Ritesh Tiwari are also accompanying the delegation.
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The BJP central delegation visit is the second in the last few days. In the first instance a BJP central team led by party vice-presidents S S Ahluwalia and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had about a fortnight ago visited Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district where a number of party workers were injured in an attack allegedly by TMC supporters.
The first team in its report had said that the violence could be ‘state-sponsored’ and the border area with Bangladesh is the new home for Islamic fundamentalist groups who are being ‘patronised’ by TMC government for vote bank politics.