Kolkata, Dec 2 (IANS): West Bengal Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Suvendu Adhikari criticised Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday for seeking to send UN peace-keeping forces to Bangladesh, saying that Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh and Mamata Banerjee in Bengal are the same.
“The Chief Minister has placed a proposal on the floor of the Assembly seeking to send peace-keeping forces to Bangladesh. What was ‘her’ police in the state doing when the ‘jihadis’ were ‘obstructing’ Hindu religious festivals across the state? Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh and Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal are the same,” said the LoP while addressing a rally at the Benapole-Petrapole Indo-Bangladesh border in North 24 Parganas district as a protest against the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh as well as the arrest of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) monks by Bangladesh Police last week.
Reacting to Adhikari’s comparison between Yunus and Mamata Banerjee, Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh said that the LoP is making baseless allegations.
“Instead of protesting at the Benapole-Petrapole border, the state BJP leaders should go to New Delhi and urge the Union government to intervene in Bangladesh. The West Bengal government cannot interfere in the external affairs of the other countries,” Ghosh said.
Ghosh added that the silence of the Union government on the Bangladesh issue seems suspicious of whether it is a plot of the BJP to provoke the Hindus in West Bengal and exploit the developments in Bangladesh.
Earlier, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sought the intervention of the United Nations (UN) in the ongoing crisis in neighbouring Bangladesh, saying that the Union government should consider peace-keeping forces in Bangladesh following the UN intervention
On Monday, the protesting workers blocked the movement of cross-border goods vehicles at the Benapole-Petrapole border for 24 hours.
The LoP claimed if normalcy is not restored and the attacks on minority Hindus are not stopped in Bangladesh, then the goods traffic movement will be blocked for five consecutive days next week.