Over 11,000 incidents of post poll violence in Bengal, says BJP

New Delhi: As the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal continues its protest against the
ongoing post-poll violence perpetrated on BJP workers on the ground allegedly by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) since the election results were declared on 2 May, a list prepared by the BJP on post-poll violence shows that over 11,200 incidents of violence, murder, crime against women and arson were documented by the party in the past two months.
According to the list prepared by the BJP’s Bengal unit and accessed by The Sunday Guardian, the party says that over 40 of its karyakartas have been murdered in Bengal in the last two months, just for supporting the party or being a part of the BJP, allegedly by the TMC.
The BJP list says that over 54 incidents of rape threats have been received by their party workers from across several districts. The highest of these rape threats and criminal incidents against women have been reported from the BJP’s Barasat organisational district. The party says that over 11 incidents of rape threats and violence against women were received by the party from Barasat organisational district alone. Some of the other districts that reported criminal incidents against women workers include Coochbehar, Asansol, South 24 Parganas, Burdwan and Howrah, among many others, according to the BJP.
The BJP also claims that 12 of its karyakartas were “murdered” in Coochbehar and Barrackpore. These two organisational districts recorded the highest number of murder incidents over the last two months. Both these two places, which are also Lok Sabha constituencies, have BJP MPs. While Nishith Paramanik is the MP from Coochbehar, Arjun Singh is MP from Barrackpore.
The other organisational districts that the party claims have witnessed more than one “political murder” following the election results in Bengal include Kolkata South (5), Malda, Diamond Harbour, Bankura, Ghatal (2 each), Burdwan (4) and Birbhum (3).
The list of post-poll incidents of violence prepared by the party also documents around 4,000 incidents of party workers being beaten up, attacked, threatened and families receiving death threats in different parts of the state.
The BJP claims that these incidents have all been perpetrated by “state sheltered” TMC “goons” for not supporting their party in the recently concluded West Bengal elections. The document also lists about 7,000 incidents of violence where its karyakartas’ properties were damaged, vandalised, burnt down, or destroyed. Some of the incidents which involved property destruction include burning down of houses, shops, loot and arson, destruction of cultivated land by farmers, pouring of poison in fish-ponds, among many others.
The party claims that they are still documenting reports of violence, though scattered, from the interiors of the state, where their ground workers are still living in constant fear of life and safety of their families.