West Bengal’s heavyweight Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh’s convoy suffered an accident on Basanti Highway in Balirhat on Wednesday. He was on his way to Bashirhat’s Hingalganj.

As it happened, the tyre of one of the wheels of a car, carrying Singh’s security officials, burst out. Following it, the car lost control and fell into a nearby pond, injuring three commandos, reported Bengali portal The Wall.

Advertisement

All the passengers were rescued by the locals before they were taken to hospital. Local officials of Minakha Police Station had arrived at the location soon after the accident. BJP MP Saumitra Khan and Dr. Subhash Sarkar went there as well.

Singh was travelling to Hingalganj to visit the family of late BJP leader Rabindranath Mondal, whom the saffron party claimed was killed by Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers.

Mondal, BJP’s deputy secretary of booth number 234 in Hingalganj, succumbed to injuries sustained allegedly during clashes with TMC workers in Basirhat last week. He breathed his last at the SSK Hospital on Monday night.

Reportedly on September 12, BJP held a public meeting in the area in their support of the contentious Farm Bills that were passed in the Parliament last month. However, the event was not allowed by the local police.

TMC, on the other hand, had followed it up with rally on the next day, protesting against the Bills.

It was at the end of TMC’s rally when violence had erupted, injuring Mondal and six others. All of them were taken to local municipality hospital in Basirhat.

With Mondal’s condition not improving, he was first transferred to the Nil Ratan Sarkar Hospital in Kolkata before being moved to the SSK Hospital.

Meanwhile, local TMC leader Dinabandhu Koyal was also heavily attacked in Hingalganj area in the aftermath of the rally. The ruling party has alleged that Koyal was beaten up by miscreants backed by BJP iron rod and sticks, making him unconscious.

Koyal, in his statement from the hospital, accused local saffron party leaders Amar Raut, Bhabatosh Das and Samaresh Das of conspiring to kill him.