BJP leaders meet Rajnath on Bengal law-&-order situation

Kolkata: BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha met Union home minister Rajnath Singh here on Thursday and urged him to look into the law-and-order situation in West Bengal.

Mr Singh is in the city to chair a meeting of chief ministers of the states bordering Bangladesh.

Mr Sinha, along with other senior leaders of the state BJP unit, met Mr Singh in the morning and discussed a wide range of issues, from the recent unrest in the Darjeeling hills to the overall law-and-order situation in the state.

“We told him (Mr Singh) about the worsening law-and-order situation in the state, how the workers of the Opposition parties are being beaten up and even killed. We told him that democratic rights and values are facing a threat in the state,” Mr Sinha told PTI.

“We urged him to look into the matter and take up the issue with the (West Bengal) chief minister (Mamata Banerjee) during the meeting today,” he added.

Mr Sinha said Mr Singh was told about the “double standards” of the Trinamul Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal as regards the Darjeeling hills.

“The state government is solely responsible for the unrest in the hills. On one hand, it is rewarding (rebel Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leader) Binay Tamang, who has police cases against him, and on the other, it is taking action against (GJM chief) Bimal Gurung.

“The state government’s divide-and-rule policy in the hills will backfire very soon,” he added.

The Darjeeling hills had witnessed an over-three-and-a- half-month-long shutdown, from June to September this year, over the GJM’s demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland.

The influx of the Rohingya and Bangladeshi immigrants and how to curb it were likely to be discussed at today’s meeting, which had been convened by Singh, a home ministry official said.