State minister and Trinamool spokesperson Shashi Panja’s house in Girish Park, adjacent to the Metro station, was allegedly attacked by BJP supporters en route to the Brigade Parade ground on Saturday afternoon.
“My home is being stoned by the BJP goondas. I will speak later,” the minister told The Telegraph Online over phone.
Trinamool sources said BJP supporters pelted stones at the house while marching on Chittaranjan avenue towards the Brigade Parade ground.
When the incident took place the minister was at her home.
A source close to the minister alleged two members of the minister’s staff were assaulted by the BJP supporters and had to be hospitalised.
A video shared on Facebook a person is heard repeatedly saying “Minister’s house has been attacked.”
Videograb.
The minister later said she too sustained injuries in the attack.
“They are doing the Brigade meeting with mawalis,” she said. “The BJP supporters tore down a flex of our party and then left on a bus. Our workers replaced it. Soon another group came and attacked our workers.”
The stone-pelting continued for more than an hour. The minister was surrounded by cops on the ground-floor of her house.
“Look at their audacity. In front of the media they have continued to pelt stones at my house and attack the policemen as well. They are murderers, they are not ordinary criminals,” the minister said.
The BJP has claimed that one of the buses ferrying party supporters to the venue was attacked by Trinamool supporters at the Girish Park- Chittaranjan avenue crossing. The BJP claimed one of its supporters was injured in an attack orchestrated by the Trinamool.
The supporters of both the parties came to blows in front of a team of policemen stationed to guard the minister’s home.
The officer-in-charge of Bowbazar police station was injured in the stone pelting.
In the last lap of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, during a roadshow by Union home minister Amit Shah, a group of BJP supporters went berserk on College street and a statue of Vidyasagar was damaged in the melee.
The chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had promised a violence free election this year.