KOLKATA: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha member Khagen Murmu sustained injuries when he was assaulted and stones were thrown at his car during a visit to the flood-affected Nagrakata community block in Jalpaiguri district.
Khagen Murmu was taken to a clinic in Chalsa and later shifted to a hospital in Siliguri. (Screengrab/X/RajuBistaBJP) The MP and his party blamed members of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) for the attack.
“Trinamool Congress workers assaulted us. They were shouting slogans at us. They did not want us to visit the flood-affected areas before chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Some local police personnel, who were at the spot, did not come to our rescue,” BJP MLA Shankar Ghosh told reporters.
In a video shared on social media by Siliguri town MLA Ghosh, the Malda North MP is seen sitting in a vehicle, wiping blood off his face. Murmu was taken to a clinic in Chalsa and later shifted to a private hospital in Siliguri.
“We were going to some villages that were hit by the floods on Sunday. Our intention was to assess the damage and submit a report to the Centre so that relief materials could be distributed. The villagers started assaulting us. They smashed all the windows of the car with stones and sticks. I had a narrow escape,” Ghosh said.
The incident was reported by several television channels that were covering the MP’s visit to the area. In these reports, the central paramilitary force personnel who accompanied Murmu could be seen being pushed around by the villagers.
BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya, who was in another part of the Nagrakata community block when the incident took place, criticised the Mamata Banerjee government for the attack.
“In this state, it is not the rule of law but the rule of miscreants that prevails,” he said in a social media post in Bengali. “Even after the massive destruction in North Bengal yesterday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was busy with a carnival. And today, her party’s miscreants are wreaking havoc in this manner,” the post said.
Mahua Gope, president of the TMC’s Jalpaiguri district unit, rejected the allegations linking the party to the incident. “The local people got angry on seeing the BJP leaders because they went there to play poli
Read More