A BJP leader on Monday took a group of 140 girls and women from tea estates and villages in Alipurduar district to Assam to watch The Kerala Story, a film that was banned in Bengal.

Former MP Dasrath Tirkey had bought tickets in advance for the show at a cinema in New Bongaigaon, which is around 120km from Kumargram.

The movie directed by Sudipto Sen is accused of promoting the rightwing ecosystem’s “Love Jihad” theory.

Tirkey, who hails from Kumargram, had initially been with the Left. He joined the Trinamul Congress and in 2020, took membership in the BJP.

“I felt it was necessary for young girls to watch the movie. Many of them go to other states for jobs and should stay safe. As the film has been banned in our state, we took them to Assam where they watched the movie today,” said Tirkey, a state vice president of BJP’s SC/ST Cell.

On Sunday, he had booked 140 tickets for the show and hired two private buses for the travel to New Bongaigaon. The buses left for Assam on Monday morning, carrying girls and women from tea estates like Kumargram, Newlands and Sankosh, and from some adjoining villages.

“We also arranged lunch for each of them and reached the cinema hall on time. The film ended at 4.15pm and we returned by evening,” said Tirkey, who was accompanied by his wife on the trip.

Sushma Kharia, a woman worker at Newlands, said she had enjoyed the trip. “I had never travelled so far to watch a film. It was like an outing and we enjoyed it,” she said.