Poster wars between Trinamool, BJP in West Bengal Assembly

The BJP MLAs walked out of the House in protest against the alleged violence on party supporters during ‘March to Nabanna’

Amidst the war of words between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the State’s ruling party and the Opposition targeted each other in a novel way using posters against each other in the West Bengal Assembly. On Thursday the BJP MLAs raised the posters in the State Assembly and walked out of the House in protest against the alleged violence on the party supporters during the ‘March to Nabanna’ on September 13.

The posters held by the BJP lawmakers had the photographs of their supporters injured in the violence. As the BJP lawmakers raised slogans ‘all are thieves in Trinamool’, the ruling party lawmakers also came out of the House with the posters targeted at the BJP. The Trinamool lawmakers raised the posters targeting the Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari. The posters by the Trinamool lawmaker read, “56 inchi chati’s (chest) tale, Don’t touch my body, I am male”.

The leaders of the State’s ruling party including the Party’s general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had criticised the Leader of the Opposition for his remark made on September 13, when a group of female police officers apparently tried to take Mr. Adhikari to a police vehicle. On Thursday, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh also ridiculed the remark made by the Leader of the Opposition and said Mr. Adhikari had made a fool of himself.

Mr. Adhikari has claimed that his arrest on September 13 during the BPP’s ‘ March to Nabanna’ was a violation of an “order of Hon’ble Justice Rajasekhar Mantha, which wasn’t interfered with by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India”. The Court had directed that there could be no coercive action against Mr. Adhikari. Violence had erupted during the BJP’s “march to Nabanna’ and several BJP supporters and police personnel were injured. A police van was also set on fire in Kolkata. The Kolkata Police on Thursday arrested seven more persons in connection with the attack on the police and setting the vehicle on fire.

Meanwhile, the recent developments have intensified the bitter political rivalry between Suvenu Adhikari and the Trinamool leaders. Mr. Adhikari was a key Minister in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet but switched to the BJP months before the 2021 Assembly polls.