New Delhi: Continuing the assault on the West Bengal Government over the Malda incident, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday reiterated that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was using ‘extremist forces’ for their own benefit in the state and said that they will take the issue to President Pranab Mukherjee.
“Mamata Banerjee is playing the dirtiest vote bank politics in Malda and in Bengal. In that she tries to communalise issues. There is a terror mechanism that is trying to be spread by her and there are extremist forces that are being used by Mamata’s administration for their own benefit,” BJP leader Siddharth Nath Singh told ANI.
“All this is coming out in the open and Malda is a classic book example of how the government under Mamata is functioning,” he added.
Sharpening his attack on Mamata, Singh further said that the ‘vote bank’ politics was affecting the national security, to which the BJP would fight against.
“BJP will raise their voice when it comes to national security and therefore we have decided to go to the Home Minister and the President of India and will apprise them of the entire situation for an appropriate action,” Singh said.
Earlier, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) had hit out at the BJP for trying to ‘communalise’ the Malda incident and maintained that the state government had handled the situation ‘tactfully’.
“It’s a sensitive border town. 10 arrests have been made and there have been no injuries or deaths. They are trying to communalise a criminal incident and we are not surprised. This is the BJP RSS strategy of trying to change the narrative with 100 days to go to polls,” TMC leader Derek O’Brien told ANI.
On Monday, a three-member fact-finding delegation of the BJP who went to Malda to take stock of the ground situation was forced to return as they were detained at the Railway station by the local administration.
“The District Magistrate told us himself that Section 144 had been imposed due to the law and order situation in the area. We said that we have not come here to destabilise the situation but to help the people. We want to know the truth,” BJP MP (fact finding committee member) SS Ahluwalia told ANI.
Stating that the delegation had arrived to find the truth about the situation in Kaliachak, the fact-finding team expressed disappointment at not being allowed to enter the violence-hit area. (ANI)