Ranchi: Congress's Jamtara MLA Irfan Ansari said four labourers from his constituency were beaten up by unidentified persons in bordering Bengal's Asansol on Monday in reply to the implied threat to Bengal made by BJP's Dumka MLA and welfare minister Louise Marandi on Sunday in the ongoing Massanjore dam row.

Marandi had purportedly told the media at Massanjore on Sunday that "any jaundiced eye that looks at the dam would be plucked out", deepening the rift among people across borders of the two neighbouring states over the hydropower reservoir on Dumka soil that Bengal officially owns.

Ansari told this paper that four construction workers - Shankar Bauri, Bikas Turi, Mangal Halda and the fourth who had not been identified - were thrashed and driven out from Asansol where they went in search of work on Monday morning. People in Asansol said no one from Jharkhand would be allowed to earn their living in Bengal after Marandi's statement, Ansari said.

The Congress MLA said minister Marandi should have avoided such a statement as it endangered the jobs of daily wagers in Santhal Pargana districts, which include Dumka and Jamtara. Some 50,000 labourers from Santhal Pargana go to Bengal every morning for daily wage jobs and return at night, he said.

He added that Marandi had abused Bengal with her statement. "Santhal Pargana not only shares borders with Bengal, but also culture and tradition," he said. "When the BJP is in power in Jharkhand and at the Centre, surely resolving ownership issues of Massanjore dam can be done amicably?"

The row over Massanjore dam erupted last week when Jharkhand BJP workers stopped a Bengal team from painting the dam wall blue and white, colours preferred by Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, and escalated over the weekend over a Bengal-versus-Jharkhand logo war on the dam's welcome gates.

On whether he backed Bengal government's bid to colour dam walls, Ansari called it a non-issue.