BJP workers on Monday fought a pitched battle with the police in north Bengal, as they were stopped from moving past barricades at two points near branch secretariat 'Uttarkanya' here during their rally in protest against TMC dispensation's "misrule".
During the clash, one party worker allegedly succumbed to injuries, following which BJP’s Yuva Morcha National President Tejasvi Surya took to Twitter to launch a scathing attack on the West Bengal administration, blaming "Mamata's police" for the alleged death of the BJP worker.
"I am informed by our local karyakartas that Sri Ulen Roy, a senior BJP karyakarta, has succumbed to splinter injuries caused by the country bombs that Mamata’s police threw. This is murder. Nothing less. We are very angry. We will never forgive you Mamata Di. Om Shanti!" tweeted Tejasvi Surya from his official handle on Twitter.
West Bengal Police later confirmed that one person had reportedly died, but said that the cause of death will be confirmed only after postmortem.
The activists, as part of the 'Uttarkanya Abhijan' called by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), took out two protest marches, alleging that the state government has not fulfilled the promises made to the people of north Bengal, and benefits of the welfare schemes launched by the ruling dispensation has failed to reach the common man.
The police used water cannons and burst tear gas shells to stop the BJP workers from moving ahead, and were pelted with stones by the protesters in return.
Some activists had even set fire to the bamboo barricades set up in the area.
The party's state president, Dilip Ghosh, who led a rally to Fulbari Bazar -- one of the two approach points to the secretariat -- said the government was "using coercion" as it was scared of BJP's rise in Bengal.
Ghosh accused the local administration of setting up "a virtual island in Siliguri town by putting up multiple barricades in places to foil a democratic movement."
A second rally, led by party national secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and BJYM national unit president Tejaswi Surya, broke the first two layers of the police cordon near Tinbatti More -- about 1 km from Uttarkanya -- but could not get past the third.
According to BJP sources, Vijayvargiya and Surya had to be escorted to their vehicles by their personal security guards.
(With inputs from agencies)
