On the day of BJP-enforced 12-hour bandh, Leader of Opposition in Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari announced three separate protest marches.
On Wednesday, while leading a bandh rally in his constituency Nandigram, Suvendu announced plans for march to three significant locations in the state on the same day – the state secretariat Nabanna, Lalbazar (city police headquarters) and Kalighat, where the chief minister resides.
Suvendu expressed outrage over the alleged detention of Sayan Lahiri, a member of the West Bengal Students’ Union, by the police. He said, “At this moment, Sayan’s family is at the high court. We have taken the Kolkata police commissioner, Vineet Goel, to the high court. They have no shame, they are uneducated. We will teach them a lesson in court. We stand by Sayan’s family. They must explain why he was detained. They have arrested 132 of our people.”
Following this, he announced, “Be prepared, there will be three protests on the same day. Who will participate, you will find out. When it happens, you will find out. There will be marches to Nabanna, Lalbazar and Kalighat on the same day. The demand is one – Mamata’s resignation. My sister’s blood will not go in vain.”
It is worth noting that the Nabanna march, organized by the Chatra Samaj on Tuesday was first mentioned by Suvendu. However, it is not yet clear whether this three-pronged protest will be organized by the BJP. BJP national IT cell in-charge and Bengal co-observer Amit Malviya has launched a scathing attack on the Kolkata Police, accusing them of acting under pressure to appease West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Malviya alleged that the police were aggressively targeting student protestors, while turning a blind eye to assaults carried out by members of the ruling Trinamul Congress. Malviya shared a video purportedly showing members of the so-called ‘lungi vahini’, a group allegedly affiliated to the TMC, collaborating with the Kolkata Police to assault students protesting for justice in the R G Kar Medical College rape and murder incident.