Clashes broke out between workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Kolkata on Thursday, 8 March, over the desecration of a bust of BJP founder Shyama Prasad Mookerjee.
Fists flew as supporters of both the parties came head-to-head when the BJP workers staged a protest against the vandalism.
The clashes erupted even as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condemned the vandalism of Mookerjee’s bust.
“We respect Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. He is a son of Bengal. He can be an ideologue of a different political party but this does not mean we will blacken his bust,” she said while taking a dig at the BJP for targeting her party over the incident.
While addressing a women’s rally in Kolkata, Mamata said that eminent personalities such as Sawmi Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and others have a distinct place in history and are venerated by their followers.
The Bengal CM had earlier condemned the toppling of the Lenin statue in Tripura.
On Wednesday, the BJP had launched a massive rally from the party’s headquarters in Kolkata to Dharmatala. Supporters, which included a high percentage of women, were seen waving the party flag and chanting slogans against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
According to reports, the police arrested six members of an ultra-Left outfit for vandalism at South Kolkata’s Tollygunge.