Agartala: The ruling BJP in Tripura has disowned the responsibility of the provocative comment of its MLA and senior advocate of High Court Arun Chandra Bhowmik to the party cadres insisting them to attack Trinamool in ‘Talibani style’ while felicitating the union minister of state for Social Justice and Empowerment.
Bhowmik was the oldest serving Trinamool Chairman of Tripura and fought several elections with TMC symbol but, before the 2018 assembly elections, he joined in BJP and managed a ticket and was able to win the seat, which had been considered as one of the stronghold of communists for last 30 years.
Speaking to party workers in his constituency at Belonia in South Tripura two days ago the accompanied by union minister Pratima Bhowmik told the cadres, “We need to attack them in Talibani style, once they land at the airport here. We will protect our government led by Biplab Kumar Deb with every drop of blood.”
Soon after the video had gone viral on social media and local television channels, the Trinamool Congress came down heavily on BJP. Former Rajyasabha MP and TMC leader Ritabrata Banerjee sought clarification from the party whether they endorse such utterance and said, “The people of Tripura need to know whether BJP cadres here have modern sophisticated arms like Talibani.”
He alleged that after his statement BJP cadres have stepped up violence and continuing attacks on Trinamool workers across South Tripura from Aug 18 night. Several party offices have been set on fire and as many as 12 of their workers faced violent attack by BJP but police are taking a mute role, Banerjee added.
He questioned when the whole world was opposing the Taliban, how a BJP MLA could insist his cadres to adopt such a model to resist the opposition and the administration became silent? The BJP has already established a fascist rule in Tripura by now where the Chief Minister’s office was found involved in stopping services in the hotels for TMC leaders and openly supporting the attack on senior leaders of Trinamool.
The opposition CPI-M and Congress have also reacted sharply and demanded legal action against Arun Chandra Bhowmik for such provocative speech and also sought the attention of the High Court to look into the matter where an advocate turns MLA taking the oath of peace and development has instigated violence on the opposition.
“Why BJP central leadership not taken action yet for such a statement from an MLA in presence of the central minister. As of now, there is no clarification from the Chief Minister or Speaker because the statement of MLA is a sanction to perpetrate violence and police must arrest him immediately,” Congress leader Birajit Sinha stated.
The senior CPI-M leader and MLA Badal Choudhury alleged that the attack on media was started after September 11 last year when the Chief Minister had openly threatened media who were writing against his government and as of now 28 journalists were injured.
Last week, Deputy Speaker Biswabandhu Sen had called upon BJP cadres to ‘break the bones’ of government employees who would not listen to the party. Now, MLA Bhowmik directed his cadres to carry out Talibani attack on Trinamool leaders at the airport but police didn’t register any case in none of the occasions, which indicated the sanction of party and government in all those events, Choudhury observed.
Meanwhile, Chief Spokesperson of Tripura BJP, Subrata Chakraborty, said that the comments made by Arun Bhowmik were entirely his views and the party neither endorse it nor take any responsibility for such statement and added, “It is entirely his responsibility and this is not the culture of BJP.”
However, justifying his statement, Bhowmik said that he used the word ‘Talibani’ to make people understand the design of Trinamool Congress and the use of word ‘Talibani’ might create a misunderstanding, but my intention was just to describe the strategy to counter TMC with all seriousness to prevent Trinamool’s attempts to create troubles in Tripura.
