Setback for Mamata Banerjee government, Calcutta HC allows BJP to hold 3 yatras in West Bengal

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Updated: Dec 20, 2018 22:33 IST

A single-judge bench of the Calcutta High Court on Thursday gave conditional approval for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s rath yatra, setting aside the state government’s December 15 rejection of the party’s application to hold the same.

BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said the party will fix new dates for the yatra, after discussions with the administration.

There is no indication whether the state government will appeal the decision before a division bench.

The court asked both the administration and the party to ensure the programme is conducted peacefully and pulled up the state government for dragging its feet in terms of holding discussions with the BJP on the yatra.

The Trinamool Congress and the BJP have a bitter rivalry.

“They (the BJP) are trying to unleash something worse than ‘jungle raj’. We don’t yet know what conditions have been set. The administration will look at the order and formulate a response,” said Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee.

Justice Chakraborty said the government should ensure that there is no untoward incident, but that if there is any, the party will share responsibility for it .

The court also asked the BJP to ensure ordinary people are not inconvenienced in any way by its yatra.

“We welcome the order. The yatra will highlight the good deeds of Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also how the Mamata Banerjee government (in West Bengal) is murdering democracy and spreading anarchy,” said BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya.

He added that party president Amit Shah will flag off the yatra and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also speak during it.

“We were always ready to hold the yatra responsibly. We will comply with all the conditions set by the court,” said Dilip Ghosh.

“We hope that the (West Bengal) government will not appeal against this verdict,” said BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha.

“The court verdict signals a victory of the people. The way the state government tried to block our programme was illogical, unethical and unlawful,” remarked Mukul Roy, convenor of the BJP’s election management committee in the state.

Roy said the party’s leaders will soon meet to work out the details and modalities of the programme, including scheduling public meetings by VIP speakers.

“We hope the BJP will ensure that law and order is not violated. If they do otherwise, the BJP will suffer the consequences,” said Pradip Bhattacharya Congress MP from Rajya Sabha.

Criticising the state’s inertia in responding to the BJP’s proposal, the court also trashed the intelligence inputs cited by the government suggesting a breach of communal harmony during the yatra.

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Advocate general Kishore Dutta told the court that over the past two years, the state has given permission to 2,100 programmes by the BJP, and only objected to this yatra because of specific intelligence inputs on the likely disruption of communal harmony.

The state also pointed out logistical problems and said the passage of the yatra through the districts over 40-odd days would also entail prolonged blockades of highways and roads in densely-populated areas.

The BJP emphasised in court that the programme was political, not religious.

The party also offered to suspend the yatra on December 25 (Christmas), January 1 (New Year) and January 14 (Makar Sankranti).

The yatra was originally scheduled to last 40-odd days with multiple rallies converging in Kolkata.