Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and India’s federal Home Minister Amit Shah held a core group meeting of party leaders late Monday night after protests were reported in several parts of West Bengal state over the selection of candidates for the legislative polls.
The Trinamool Congress-led state of West Bengal is scheduled to hold polls from 27 March for 294 seats. The BJP has emerged as the main opposition party in the state.
According to political sources, discussions were held about those who went on a rampage in front of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Kolkata office after being denied poll tickets.
On Monday, angry party workers broke the guardrails while demonstrating outside the local BJP office. Moreover, several senior leaders like Mukul Roy and Arjun Singh were stopped from entering its premises.
Protests against the BJP were reported in several parts of the state.
BJP leader and TMC turncoat Sovan Chatterjee along with his friend Baisakhi Bandopadhyay quit the party after both of them were denied tickets.
In his resignation letter, Chatterjee accused the BJP of humiliating him and of “conspiracies and treachery against him”.
Chatterjee currently represents the constituency Behala Purba, a small city in West Bengal. He served as a minister in Mamata Banerjee’s governing Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state.
According to local media reports, protests were also held in the Hooghly and South 24 Parganas districts.
In Hooghly, BJP activists locked up party functionaries in their office over the nomination of another TMC turncoat.
The federally governing BJP, the main opposition in the Trinamool Congress-led state legislature, is leaving no stone unturned to register its first win in the state. In the last three months, the BJP has won over more than 20 prominent leaders from TMC, including parliamentarians.
The election in the state will conclude on 29 April and the results will be announced on 2 May.
