2 FIRs lodged against Dilip Ghosh

Kolkata: Triggering a controversy yet again, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh has described the state as a “den of the anti-nationals” encouraged by chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

The Trinamul Congress has filed two FIRs against him for his threatening to “Shoot people to death like dogs the way the BJP-ruled state governments did it in Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Karnataka for the destruction of the public properties during the violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC)”.

In Nadia where the state BJP chief issued the threat on January 12 evening, district Trinamul leader Krishnendu Banerjee lodged the complaint of inciting communal tension against Mr Ghosh at the Ranaghat police station. Sections 153(2), 166, 505, 506 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code were slapped on Mr Ghosh in the case. Later another case was initiated at the Habra police station in North 24 Parganas.

The BJP MP of Midnapore also slammed the people protesting against the CAA and NRC for shouting ‘Go Back’ slogans to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent two-day visit to the state.

He pointed out that they could not do the same to the infiltrators, including the Rohingyas. Mr Ghosh, who has been in the eye of a storm — both within the BJP and outside — for his recent threat, said at Kharagpur on Tuesday, “Slogans of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Jai Hind’ were raised in Bengal.”

He claimed, “But if someone shouts ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ and ‘Hindustan Tere Tukre Honge Hazar, Inshallah Inshallah’ here, it automatically comes to mind that the state has become a den of the anti-nationals.”

Mr Ghosh alleged, “They are being encouraged by Ms Banerjee. So all of them are equally guilty. Bengal has to be freed from these anti-nationals’ clutches.”