West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, 25 May. Mamata said that she met the Prime minister to discuss development and not Politics. Though after the meeting she said that BJP are destroying government properties, attacking police personnel, hurling bombs and torching vehicles in Kolkata. She also said that BJP has turned Kolkata into a protest zone.
BJP held a rally in Kolkata to protest against the deteriorating law and order in the state. Former MP and expelled leader of the Communist party, Lakshan Seth, was present at the rallies. Shouting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and chanting “jai shree Ram” slogan. It was for the first time that, Kolkata police used drones to monitor the movement of the political rally and the city constabulary appealed to the BJP leaders to not break the law. But still, during the protest, some BJP workers, allegedly, threw bombs at the police, while a police vehicle was set ablaze and a state government bus was torched by the BJP workers. The police deployed water cannons and barricades to halt a BJP workers rally.
The local leadership of the BJP demanded the arrest of former Imam of Tipu Sultan Masjid, Maulana Nurur Rahman Barkati, who had issued a fatwa against Modi earlier. Senior leaders of the BJP, including national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, state president Dilip Ghosh, national secretary Rahul Sinha and BJP’s MP in Rajya Sabha, Rupa Ganguly were arrested during the protest.
To defend the allegation, BJP leader Shamik Bhattacharya said bombs were hurled by the Trinamool workers.