An anti-corruption protest march, organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal, aimed at the Trinamool-led state government, brought commoners’ life to a halt in and around Kolkata for hours on Tuesday.
While a police van was set on fire in the heart of the city and protesters threw stones injuring karyakartas, the police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the agitators—this was the outcome of the show of strength between the BJP in the Opposition and the Trinamool-led administration.
The BJP had planned ‘Nabanna Chalo Abhiyan’: a march to the state secretariat located in Howrah, the city adjoining Kolkata across the Hooghly river. Two venues—Santragachi Bus Stand and Howrah Maidan—in Howrah and one in Kolkata were the starting points of the protest march.
BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari and two other leaders—they were driven away in a police van before they could join the supporters—were to lead the Santragachi march. The protesters led by Adhikari, however, on the way to the secretariat were stopped by a barricade.
The jostle at the barricade led to the pelting of stones at police personnel, injuring around 27 of them. Water cannons and tear gas were then used to disperse the crowd. The march from the other two points, too, met with obstructions. The BJP had earlier claimed that its supporters were prevented from taking trains to Kolkata to join the march.
In the city, a police van was set on fire. BJP’s Bengal co-in-charge Amit Malviya claimed on Twitter that “Mamata Banerjee sent TMC cadres to pelt stones at the police so that later BJP could be blamed for it.”
The Trinamool Congress countered in a tweet: “Eye-witnesses say people carrying lathis and BJP flags were pelting stones, setting fire to police cars. Both handles shared television visuals of the burning vehicle, apparently shot at two different moments in time.
A video posted by Trinamool showed a group of people with lathis beating a policeman.
After the day’s incident, around 90 people were arrested in Kolkata, while the police said they were investigating to identify the culprits who set the police vehicle on fire.
Samik Bhattacharya, state spokesperson for the BJP said that 363 workers were injured, of which 35 were admitted to hospital. Bhattacharya also said that Adhikari (along with the other two leaders) was arrested before he could join the protest. The state BJP president was arrested, he said.
Kunal Ghosh, the Trinamool spokesperson, claimed that the police force was able to contain and nullify bigger disturbances that could have taken place.