The decision of Trinamool Congress leaders to march to the prime minister's residence, in protest against the arrest of TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay, without prior notice has attracted criticism from various political parties in West Bengal.
The CPM leaders were the first to call it a “deplorable” incident and said the TMC MPs misused the power vested in them.
“It’s true that we, the MPs, are given free entry to highly secured central government offices including the PMO. This is because MPs have to visit offices to present the problems of people to various ministries when the parliament is not in session. But what they have done was complete misuse of power. Probably, after this MPs would not get such free access. They have created a bad precedence,” said Mohammed Salim, a Politburo member.
West Bengal Congress too has condemned the act. “Whoever may be the prime minister, he is the country’s prime minister. It’s totally unacceptable to march to prime minister’s residence by breaking all barriers. They forgot that they are MPs,” West Bengal Congress President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, dubbing the act a “political circus”.
“Why don’t they deal with it politically? Why don’t they go to the Supreme Court against the arrest of Sudip Bandyopadhyay?”
BJP delegates, who met Home Minister Rajnath Singh at his office in Delhi, said Singh told them that he would seek a report from West Bengal government regrading law and order.
“The home minister said he would seek a report and asked all of us to register all violent incidents in the local police stations. If the local police station refuses, then they should inform the home department of the state,” said Rahul Sinha, national secretary of BJP.
