I Will Heal, What About Bengal?

A senior BJP leader was heckled, slapped, pushed and kicked into bushes by the side of a road in Islampur amid bypolls to three assembly seats in West Bengal today. Jay Prakash Majumdar, also the party candidate for the Karimpur assembly seat, was visiting polling stations when the incident occurred near a local school around 10:30 am.

A little earlier, Mr Majumdar was locked in an altercation with security personnel at a polling booth. Sometime later, he was heckled by supporters of the Trinamool Congress. At Islampur, it turned physical.

Several news cameras were at the spot, filming the BJP leader as he got off his car at a roadside. Some people suddenly rushed in, an altercation ensued, and then came the pushing and shoving. As Mr Majumdar fell, a man in a lungi kicked him in the back – sending him sprawling into the bushes.

Initially caught off-guard, Mr Majumdar’s security guards chased the attackers but failed to catch them. The BJP leader, who was helped to his feet, dusted himself down and yelled after them: “My injuries will heal in a day or two, but what about the damage to democracy in Bengal?”

“They are scared of losing, that’s why this attack on democracy. But they will not win,” he later said, referring to Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Mahua Moitra, the Trinamool MP who earlier represented Karimpur in the state assembly.

Ms Moitra, however, hit back claiming that Mr Majumdar knew he was going to lose and was simply preparing the grounds for his defeat. “He was going from booth to booth since morning and creating trouble. He is responsible for the attack on him. I have nothing to do with it,” she said.

Rajib Banerjee, the Trinamool leader in charge of Nadia district, said Mr Majumdar was targeted as part of a factional feud within the BJP.

The incident angered local BJP workers, who set up road blocks in different places across Karimpur. BJP leader Mukul Roy rushed to complain to the Chief Election Officer (CEO). “I have never seen a candidate being slapped and kicked like this. The attackers were Trinamool goons brought from outside,” he said.

While the Election Commissioner has asked the CEO for a report, Mukul Roy has demanded the immediate arrest of Nadia district’s administrative and police chiefs. “This is all being done on the instructions of Mamata Banerjee. Such things don’t happen anywhere else,” he claimed.

Karimpur is one of three assembly seats in Bengal that went to the polls today. The BJP candidate of Kaliaganj in north Bengal created a flutter when he helped his wife cast her vote. At Kharagpur, the third assembly seat where bypolls were held, the presence of Dilip Ghosh – the MLA who vacated the seat after heading to Parliament – resulted in a debate over whether he could be there or not.

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