After stampede deaths, Bengal Oppn targets BJP, unites over Left book stalls

The Mamata All India Trinamool Congress (MAITC) on Sunday criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the death of 19 people in a Durga Puja pandal in Chorbagan, Kolkata.

MAITC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee alleged on social media that chief minister Suvendu Adhikari’s nephew Depdeep Adhikari was involved in the puja along with the BJP’s north Kolkata unit president Tamoghna Ghosh as well as the party’s Jorasanko MLA Vijay Ojha. MAITC spokesperson and Kolkata MLA Kunal Ghosh said that veteran members of the Chorebagan Sarbojanin Durgatsav Samity stepped down after the BJP came to power in May.

“When are you putting the guilty nephew in jail Suvendu Babu?” Banerjee wrote online. Tamoghna Ghosh and Debdeep Adhikari did not interact with the media on Sunday but Jijay Ojha admitted that he was the chairman of the puja committee. “I am also on the committee. The chief minister has ordered a probe,” Ojha told the media.

The chief minister said he would leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of the matter.

“The chief secretary will write to the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court praying for an inquiry by a committee headed by a sitting judge. None of the members of the committee will be from the Kolkata police or any local government agency. The role of the local police station, the role of the Kolkata police and the role of the puja organisers are all under scanner,” Adhikari told the media on Sunday afternoon.

The MAITC also criticised the BJP over allegations by Left parties the CPI(M), the CPI and the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation that members of Hindutva groups ransacked book stalls they had set up near puja pandals in Kolkata. BJP spokesperson Sayantan Basu said, “The BJP was not involved in any such alleged incident.” The stalls were removed by the police citing lack of permission.

More than a dozen videos had surfaced on social media on Sunday showing some young people ransacking the CPI(M)’s book stalls and destroying books. HT could not verify the authenticity of the videos.

CPI(M) state secretary Md Salim said, “The books are just an excuse. They are against knowledge and education.” MAITC’s Kunal Ghosh visited the CPI(M) book stall at Jadavpur on Sunday in a show of solidarity and bought a book on CPI(M) veteran and Left Front chairman Biman Bose.

“It is a shame that when people were dying in the stampede at Chorbagan, police were busy removing book stalls of the Left parties in other parts of the city,” MAITC spokesperson Anirban Bandopadhyay said.