West Bengal: On campaign trail, BJP nominee runs into TMC slogans

KOLKATA: BJP’s Bhowanipore candidate, Priyanka Tibrewal, was greeted by Trinamool supporters chanting “Jai Bangla” and “Mamata Banerjee zindabad” slogans during a campaign in one of the bylanes of Jadubabur Bazar on Wednesday.
Tibrewal, however, said she was not going to be intimidated by the ruling party.
“Trinamool doesn’t recognize me. But it has deployed party heavyweights and ministers, who are reaching out to the ‘paras’ to meet voters.Are they afraid?” she said, while Trinamool seniors Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim did the rounds of Shakespeare Sarani and Chetla.
Hakim saw nothing wrong with raising slogans. “Every voter has the right to raise slogans, to choose his favourite candidate and cast the vote. It is as basic as the right of a candidate to go on a campaign,” he said.
Tibrewal was accompanied by a kirtan team, on a day she received a a show-cause notice for allegedly violating the Election Commission’s Covid protocol while submitting her nomination. The kirtan team later posed a problem as police objected to Tibrewal campaigning with them.
“I know the rules better than you. Give it in writing if you have anything against me. I will reply,” Tibrewal said. “My brother died yesterday. I could not grieve his death because I had to come for campaigning. Now, you are finding fault with the kirtan team I took to soothe my mind,” she added.