West Bengal: BJP supporters ‘sanitized’ before Trinamool induction in Birbhum

BIRBHUM/HOOGHLY: After Gangajal and shaving of heads for “purification”, BJP workers and supporters “willing” to join Trinamool Congress have had to be “sanitized” in Birbhum.
On Thursday, around 150 BJP backers lined up for such a programme in Illambazar in the district. Before the Trinamool flag was handed over to the joinees, ‘sanitizer’ was sprayed on them via a spraying device to make them “virus-free”.

A Trinamool block-level leader, Dulal Roy, said: “Those who were in BJP were affected by virus. So before taking them into our party, they were sanitized to get rid of the virus.”

The “Trinamool aspirants” were found holding posters that read “We made a mistake by joining BJP” and “We want to join TMC”.

Trinamool had won from Bolpur constituency, where the village in question, Debipur, is situated but BJP had won by 400 votes in booths 116 and 120 there.
Earlier, in Nanoor, Bolpur, Illambazar and Sainthia, some people claiming to be BJP workers were found seeking “apology” and requesting to rejoin Trinamool over a microphone mounted on a vehicle.
In Illambazar, some villagers had sat on dharna at the Trinamool office asking to be taken back. Recently, holy Ganga water was sprinkled on around 300 such joinees in Banagram, under the Sainthia assembly constituency, in Birbhum.
In Khanakul of Hooghly district, some BJP workers had joined the ruling party in Balpai village on Tuesday after shaving their heads in “atonement”. The event was witnessed by Arambagh’s Trinamool MP Aparupa Poddar.
BJP’s Birbhum president Dhruba Saha said: ‘Since May 2 evening (when poll results were declared), our leaders and workers are being tortured and threatened. No one has willingly joined Trinamool from BJP.” “They informed us how they were inhumanly forced to attend Trinamool joining programmes in different places,” Saha alleged. “Some kind of drama is being arranged to sugarcoat post-poll violence allegations. The number (of joinees) is exaggerated by Trinamool and a section of media. Thousands of party workers are still with us and resisting Trinamool torture.”