Will give befitting reply to ‘separatist’ BJP: TMC
Times of India | 21 November 2022
KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress on Sunday slammed BJP legislators’ repeated demands to divide Bengal a day after Onda MLA Amarnath Sakha brought up separate statehood for “Rarh Bangla” at a rally. BJP’s Bankura MP Saumitra Khan had earlier made the same demand.
Sakha on Saturday promised to raise separate statehood for Rarh Bangla, comprising south Bengal districts, if BJP won the panchayat polls. At a public rally at Murakata village, he said: “Bankura, Purulia, Midnapore and Jhargram are neglected. I will urge people to support the demand for a separate statehood for Rarh Bangla.”
Trinamool responded sharply. “The people in the state will give a befitting reply to these demands of separate statehood. The BJP leaders are provoking people and clearly have separatist motives,” said spokesperson Kunal Ghosh.
Bengal BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya, however, said Sakha, a veteran BJP worker, knew what the party stood for. “People in these districts have been neglected for a long time. There could be some local compulsion and he tried to address that as a representative of the people. But he surely knows the difference between a personal opinion and the party’s stand,” Bhattacharya said.
To counter BJP leaders’ demand for a separate North Bengal, Trinamool has decided to hold a massive rally in Siliguri on Monday with supporters from Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts. At least five thousand party activists are expected to attend.
Trinamool Jalpaiguri president Mahuya Gope said: “BJP MPs and MLAs from north Bengal are playing with the sentiments of locals and trying to get votes on the grounds of carving out a separate state or Union Territory out of the north Bengal districts. Our effort will be to sensitize people to this and go all out against division of the state.”
“BJP leadership is misguiding people here. They are trying to create hype prior to panchayat polls. It’s our responsibility to make people understand that division does not really help,” said Goutam Das, a senior TMC leader.
BJP MP John Barla was among the first to raise the issue of a separate state comprising eight north Bengal districts. Soon, this demand resonated among other party leaders and public representatives, and also got takers among the public. Bapi Goswami, Jalpaiguri BJP president, said: “Let them (TMC) first list the disadvantages of a separate state or UT. I will show them the hundreds of benefits after that.”