Varanasi/Kolkata: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday alleged that BJP workers in West Bengal were being killed only for their political ideology, a charge dismissed as baseless by the ruling Trinamool Congress(TMC).
The TMC claimed that on the contrary it was their members who were being targeted in political violence in the state.
The fresh war of words between Mr Modi and the TMC came a day after a BJP worker Chandan Shaw was shot dead in Bhatpara in North 24 Parganas district that has already triggered a blame game. The BJP alleged a TMC hand behind the killing while the ruling party dismissed the allegation as baseless.
A 23-year-old BJP worker was shot dead in Nadia district’s Chakdaha town on Friday night, with the saffron party alleging that TMC men were behind the incident. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjeeon Saturday said the killing might have been a result of infighting within the BJP.
Addressing a rally during a thanksgiving visit to Varanasi from where he won the Lok Sabha polls for the second time, Modi spoke about the dangers faced by his party in the form of “political untouchability” and political violence in which party workers were being killed in Bengal for their ideology.
“Take the cases of Kerala or Kashmir, Bengal or Tripura, it will not come in the media. Some people have selective sensitivity. Hundreds of workers have been killed only for political ideology. In Tripura, workers were hanged. In Bengal, murders are still on. In Kerala too... Perhaps, in India only one political party has faced such killings. Violence has been given legitimacy. This is a danger before us,” Mr Modi said.
