Tribals visited by Shah allege pressure by BJP to join outfit

TIL Desk/National/Kolkata/ Four tribals from Purulia district of West Bengal, whose houses were visited by Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah, on Friday sought protection from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over alleged pressure by the saffron party to join the outfit. The tribals visited the Trinamool Congress office at Kalighat to apprise the chief minister of their feeling of insecurity following the pressure from the BJP, TMC leader Madan Mitra said.

Although, it is not known whether the TMC supremo met the tribal villagers. Producing the villagers before the media, Mitra claimed that they were intimidated by the physical presence of Shah and his bodyguards and therefore, rushed to Banerjee’s Kalighat residence to seek protection. He said their families were being mentally tortured by the BJP. The senior TMC leader also claimed that the BJP chief was not offered any seat during his household visits in Purulia, adding that ‘next time he (Shah) would even be refused entry by the villagers’.

Mitra said the tribal and backward cast-dominated area in Purulia, where Shah had gone on Thursday, has traditionally supported Banerjee and the people there were beneficiaries of the Bengal government’s Rs 2 per kg rice and education programmes. “For them, Mamata Banerjee’s name is synonymous with that of a mother and Amit Shah is an outsider who does not know about their lives and culture and customs,” he said.