Abhishek Banerjee (File photo)
KOLKATA/BEHRAMPORE: Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee Saturday blamed BJP politicians and a “new gaddar (traitor)” for stoking violence in Beldanga, a town in Murshidabad district bordering Bangladesh, and urged residents to deny the opposition party political space.“Stop providing oxygen to BJP,” Banerjee told a public rally in Behrampore. He warned that even limited communal polarisation could weaken the district and strengthen BJP. “If BJP manages to sow seeds of divisive politics even in one booth, Murshidabad will weaken and BJP will become stronger. Stay united as you have since 2021,” he said.Earlier in the day, PM Narendra Modi addressed a rally in Malda, another north Bengal district near Bangladesh. TMC used X to attack Modi, accusing his party of running on “communal poison” and “daily hate broadcasts,” and of “planting divisive agents of chaos in Murshidabad”.It also questioned Modi’s silence on alleged targeting of Bengali-speaking migrant workers in BJP-governed states. It called for action against CMs where migrants were “tortured, detained, deported and even lynched”, and said Bengal should not be lectured on dignity while “language, culture, identity and existence” were criminalised.Banerjee said he had learned the Beldanga unrest was allegedly instigated by “BJP babus and a new traitor of the soil”. Without naming anyone, he said voters had already “shown the door” to one traitor, whom he described as BJP’s “dummy candidate”.
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