SANDESHKHALI (North 24-Parganas): It isn't the first time that gunfire erupted in the cash-rich wetlands of Bengal, neither will it be the last. But what makes the political violence in Sandeshkhali different is that allegiance to Trinamool is not the only safety shield.

Top-rung BJP leaders chose to tread the muddy and slippery village roads under incessant rain on Saturday to reassure a band of 200-odd supporters that if Kolkata fails to protect them, New Delhi would.

BJP has acted swiftly and decisively after 13 of its supporters were shot and injured in Sandeshkhali's Bermojur Gram Panchayat-2 by alleged Trinamool gunmen on May 27 for celebrating the swearing-in of the Narendra Modi government.

The aggression with which BJP leaders spoke on Saturday was indicative of the rapidly changing political dynamics in Bengal in the run-up to the 2016 assembly polls.

The BJP delegation - which included national vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, party state president Rahul Sinha, and MPs S S Ahluwalia, Babul Supriyo and Meenakshi Lekhi - later met the victims at SSKM Hospital in Kolkata and submitted a memorandum to chief secretary Sanjay Mitra at Nabanna.

Trouble started in Sandeshkhali - some 70km from Kolkata - after two booths gave BJP a 400-vote lead over Trinamool in the Lok Sabha polls. Mostly tribal Hindus were attacked by a Trinamool gang, allegedly led by Shahjahan Sk, as police watched haplessly on the morning of May 27.

BJP has always had a base here since 1989, consolidating along religious lines in Muslim-dominated Basirhat Lok Sabha seat. On Saturday, the local school was packed - with women outnumbering men. Although everyone was drenched in the downpour, no one budged.

The BJP leaders looked horrified as Uma and Chaya Sardar narrated how 20-30 armed men unleashed terror in the village. They said that police stood and watched as tribal men and women were singled out for attack. The leaders were shown a used cartridge casing lefty behind by the attackers. Villagers allege that police have not yet come to investigate and only three of the 17 people named in the FIR have been arrested. Worse, they apprehended retaliatory attacks.

BJP's national spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi, a Supreme Court lawyer and New Delhi MP, looked stunned. "Why hasn't Shahjahan Sk been arrested? Why hasn't the law on SC-STs been invoked here? Is this how the Mamata Banerjee government treats backward classes? If the Commission here doesn't investigate it, we will go to the national commission," Lekhi said in Hindi and English, taking pictures of the bullet casing on her iPad and iPhone.

The villagers may not have understood her completely but they caught the drift. Whenever Lekhi mentioned Shahjahan's name, she got a rousing applause.

Naqvi was more direct: "Is sarkar ko sab hisab kitab dena hoga (this government has to account for everything). Goonda gardi won't be tolerated. We will report this to the Centre. This government has no right to shield the accused."

While Darjeeling MP Ahluwalia harped on the slack police investigation, Asansol MP Babul Supriyo asked villages to be alert for retaliatory attacks. It was Rahul Sinha who did the explaining to the crowd. "Things are changing. A single attack has prompted BJP to rush its senior leaders to hear you out. We will not let this happen. BJP will emerge as a credible alternative in 2016 assembly elections in Bengal," he said.

That remains to be seen but BJP seems to have forced Trinamool on the backfoot here.

On Friday night, Basirhat MP Idris Ali and minister Jyotipriyo Mullick held a meeting with Trinamool party national secretary Mukul Roy. According to sources, Trinamool has decided to bide for time.

"We will not step into any BJP provocation and inflame passions there. People will understand the futility of BJP's politics in due course," Ali said. In fact, Trinamool had planned to pre-empt the BJP meeting with another meeting in the same place on Saturday but it was scrapped.