Suvendu Adhikari, BJP MP and Opposition Leader, Locket Chatterjee, MP, and other party leaders, including Rahul Sinha, were detained by police as they neared the Second Hooghly Bridge near the secretariat and brought away in a jail van.
A large number of BJP supporters from all over West Bengal gathered this morning in Kolkata and the nearby city of Howrah to participate in the “Nabanna Abhijan,” or march to the secretariat.
As part of a large protest against alleged corruption by the Trinamool Congress administration, many West Bengal BJP politicians, including Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, were held by the police today as they marched to the state headquarters in Nabanna, Kolkata.
As protesters and security personnel fought near the Howrah bridge, the police deployed tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd. Additionally, a police car was burned out. After the skirmishes, the police apprehended a number of BJP members.
Mr. Adhikari said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had “turned West Bengal into North Korea” while he was being carried away by the police.
The police would be held accountable for their actions, he said. “Chief Minister Mamata does not have the support of her people. Therefore, she is establishing a dictatorship, similar to North Korea, in Bengal. The BJP is coming,” he claimed.
BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh was leading the demonstration from north Kolkata, while Mr. Adhikari was leading the march from the Santragachi neighbourhood.
Rahul Sinha alleged that the Mamata Banerjee administration was attempting to violently put an end to his party’s “democracy protest.”
He said that BJP members were denied access to a special train that was travelling from Alipurduar to Sealdah last night in order to join the protest march. He said that the state police had also lethally charged them.
According to party sources, police in North 24 Parganas also halted buses conveying BJP activists to Kolkata.