Irresponsible gameplan, TMC junks demand for bifurcation

Shubhadeep Choudhury
Tribune News Service
Kolkata, June 21

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After BJP MP from Alipurduar John Barla demanded statehood for north Bengal, another BJP Lok Sabha member has demanded a separate state for a different area of West Bengal.

Bishnupur BJP MP Soumitra Khan has demanded constitution of a separate state for the Jangalmahal region of West Bengal to be carved out from the state.

Several BJP leaders join Trinamool

Kolkata: In yet another jolt to the BJP, the party’s Alipurduar district president, Ganga Prasad Sharma, joined the TMC on Monday, as senior leader of the state’s ruling party Mukul Roy, who also switched sides two weeks ago, claimed that this was the “beginning of the saffron party’s end” in the state. Seven other BJP leaders from the region, too, followed in Sharma’s footsteps and joined the Banerjee camp. PTI

He said the proposed state could consist of Birbhum, Burdwan, Asansol, East and West Midnapore, Purulia, Bankura and Jhargram. It would be one of those small states like Mizoram or Manipur with a 60-member Assembly, Khan said.

He added if Prime Minister Narendra Modi could be called an “outsider” by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee despite him being an Indian, the latter also was no less an outsider for someone living in Jangalmahal.

TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh termed Khan’s statement as an “irresponsible gameplan” by the saffron party. He alleged that the BJP was trying to create trouble as it could not come to terms with electoral defeat handed out to it by Mamata Banerjee-led TMC.

The separate state demand raised by two BJP MPs in quick succession has put state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, also a member of the Lok Sabha, in an embarrassing situation. His political opponents have stared questioning his control over the party’s state unit.

Ghosh on Monday said Khan demanded a separate state as he was extremely frustrated with the present law and order situation in West Bengal. The BJP had no plans to break up the state, Ghosh asserted.

WBPCC president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, however, said the two BJP MPs would not have spoken out without approval from the party’s top leadership. “The BJP is a regimented party. I am not ready to believe that the party’s Central leaders were unaware of what these two MPs were saying,” Chowdhury, who is also Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said.