West Bengal police Tuesday, used water cannons to disperse BJP workers who were taking out a protest rally against Mamata Banerjee-led state government. The rally, led by party MP and BJYM national president Tejasvi Surya and state BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar was moving from Karunamoyee towards Bikash Bhavan in Kolkata when the state police intercepted the rally and used water cannons to disperse them.
The state’s opposition party was protesting a variety of issues, including an alleged teacher-appointment scam.
Reacting to the incident, Tejasvi Surya told the reporters, “Land of Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore, land that had guided the country in education in the context of the freedom movement is now sinking as far as the education system is concerned. Yuva Morcha is protesting against the politicisation & corruption in our education system”.
“Mamata Banerjee has killed democracy in West Bengal. We told Police to arrest/detain us but not resort to a lathi-charge. But they did. Male cops attacked our women workers. As per my info, four workers need hospitalisation, one already hospitalised,” lambasted BJP state chief Sukanta Majumdar.
The West Bengal state government has often been on the radar regarding the issue of recruitment in various appointments including SSC, TET and SLST. Last year, OpIndia reported how political parties in West Bengal exploited the police recruitment drive to make religious reservations. The merit list of a recruitment drive published by the West Bengal Police Recruitment Board then showed that apart from one or two individuals, all of them were Muslims. The same had happened in 2019 as well.
The situation has deteriorated to the point where the Calcutta High Court has instructed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to look into the majority of these instances.