Three-day dharna: BJP to organise Nandigram-like movement in Bengal over Sandeshkhali issue

The West Bengal unit of the BJP is planning a marathon three-day dharna from February 27 in Kolkata along with a few women from Sandeshkhali. The party plans to launch protests on the lines of the Nandigram movement that ended the Left Front’s rule in the state.

Suvendu Adhikari was the key man behind organising the Nandigram movement as the-then Trinamool Congress leader and the BJP leadership wants to use his experience now to corner the Mamata Banerjee Government.

The women have been protesting for quite some time in Sandeshkhali accusing associates of local Trinamool Congress leaders of sexual harassments and violence against them.

The demonstration will start from February 27 and will continue till the evening of February 29.

The BJP’s state President Dr Sukanta Majumdar and the Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, along with other senior leaders of the party will lead the demonstration.

The venue of the demonstration will be the base of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in central Kolkata.

The decision on this count was taken at a special meeting of the state committee of the BJP that was convened on Friday morning to finalise the party’s strategy on the Sandeshkhali crisis in the days to come.

“There are clear instructions from the party’s central committee to tap all possible avenues and go all out to organise movements against the state government and ruling dispensation on the Sandeshkhali issue.

“Instructions are also there to organise movements involving victims, especially the protesting women there. On this point, the idea of organising a three-day marathon sit-in-demonstration involving the protesting women of Sandeshkhali was floated and accepted,” a BJP state committee member said.

Meanwhile, party insiders said that there are clear instructions from the central leadership that the movement over the Sandeshkhali crisis should be organised on the lines of the movement against land acquisition at Nandigram in East Midnapore District between 2007 and 2009.

The Nandigram movement is perceived to have played a key role in ending the 34-year rule of the Left Front.

Adhikari joined the BJP before the 2021 Lok Sabha polls and in that election he got elected from Nandigram after defeating the Trinamool Congress candidate and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who subsequently got elected in the bi-elections from Bhabanipur Assembly constituency.

The BJP leadership now wants to use Adhikari’s successful experience in organising the Nandigram movement in implementing similar agitation programmes at Sandeshkhali.