NAXALBARI COUPLE WHO HOSTED AMIT SHAH JOINS TRINAMOOL
SILIGURI: A tribal couple in Bengal’s Naxalbari joined the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday, a little over a week after BJP president Amit Shah had lunch at their house in a meeting seen as an ambitious attempt by the saffron party to increase its presence in the state
Raju and Gita Mahali received the Trinamool flag at the party’s Naxalbari block office at 10am on Wednesday, prompting angry reactions from the BJP.
“They were kidnapped on Tuesday. Today they were made to join the ruling party,” said state president Dilip Ghosh, who sat on Shah’s right during lunch in the humble hut on April 25.
“They were missing since Tuesday. Their phones were also switched off. Our party workers went to Naxalbari police station to lodge a complaint but police did not accept it,” said Pravin Agarwal, BJP president of Darjeeling district.
The rivalry between the ruling TMC and BJP has soared in recent months, manifesting itself in attacks and incendiary speeches. TMC president and chief minister Mamata Banerjee has routinely attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party. She has alleged the arrests of her MPs in cases of alleged scams by central agencies are politically motivated.
“The couple belong to the scheduled tribe. They joined our party on their own and they will participate in our party’s programme of carrying development to all sections of society in Bengal,” said Gautam Deb.
The TMC leader also had tea in the same house where Shah had lunch eight days ago.
Ghosh said that the body language of the couple in the TMC office, where they formally joined the party, “proved” that they were under pressure. “They were sitting with their heads down and looking at the ground,” he said.
Raju, a daily labourer who assists building painters, and his wife, who works in a tea garden, became famous when Shah and Ghosh went to their hut in Naxalbari, where they treated the leaders to a frugal lunch.
BJP has taken an interest in Naxalbari, the cradle of ultra-Left extremism in the country.
Hatighisha, the village of Maoist icon Kanu Sanyal, was adopted by BJP MP SS Ahluwalia as a model village after he was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014.