BJP, TMC in war of words over Malda riots

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 11

Ahead of the West Bengal elections, the Malda incident has become the cause for a major face-off between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP.

A "fact-finding" team of BJP and CPM MPs was denied entry into violence-hit Kaliachak in West Bengal's Malda district on Monday, resulting in barbs being traded between the parties and the TMC.

The parties accused each other of engaging in "communalising" the January 3 incident for the sake of "vote-bank politics".

Saffron MPs Bhupendra Yadav, Ram Vilas Vedanti and SS Ahluwalia were today asked by the police and the district administration to return as prohibitory orders were in place in Kaliachak. After the action, the BJP accused the "dictatorial" Mamata Banerjee-led government of "double standards, indulging in communal politics, doing a U-turn and jeopardising the national safety for the sake of those carrying out fake currency notes racket and opium smuggling in the Malda region".

Dismissing the allegations, the TMC in turn accused the saffron party of acting in pursuance of "communally insensitive narrative" in the wake of the upcoming polls in April. "The BJP is using social media army to stoke the Malda fire," TMC leader Derek O'Brien said, calling Malda a "criminal and not communal" incident.

According to O'Brien, the BJP team was not on a "fact finding mission" but on a "fuel the communal tension mission". "Malda was tactfully handled so no one was hurt and 10 persons have been arrested," he said.

However, as per BJP's Sidharth Nath Singh, the Malda incident was a "planned action" and "not some small incident between the BSF and local people that Banerjee was projecting it as". "The West Bengal CM should then explain why mobs went to police station and not BSF barracks," he questioned, alleging that the incident was connected to the "fake currency and opium smuggling" in Malda, which the TMC wanted to suppress.

"Large scale illegal opium farming is happening in Malda. Not in acres but hectares. This is the reason why the police station at Kaliachak was targeted. The mobs wanted to destroy records related to the ongoing investigations in these crimes," the BJP leader said, accusing the CM of being "hand in glove with the perpetrators of the incident".

Violence had broken out at Kaliachak on January 3 over a remark allegedly by a leader of a Hindu organisation in UP in December.