‘Polarisation politics at play’: Bengal Congress blames TMC and BJP for Waqf protests, violence

New Delhi: West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Subhankar Sarkar on Sunday alleged that the ongoing mob agitation and violence in the state against Parliament passing the waqf bill is part of the ruling All India Trinamool Congress and opposition BJP fomenting politics of polarisation with an eye on next year's assembly election.

Sarkar also pointed out that violence over the issue coincided with the state chief minister Mamata Banerjee suffering a blow in the Supreme Court, which struck down appointments of 26,000 school teachers. He also claimed that BJP's Suvendu Adhikari was in no position to raise teachers' issue either as he was then the second-in-command of the Trinamool Congress and a senior minister of the Banerjee government, a key player in formulating the policy for recruiting the teachers.

"The ongoing agitation and violence in West Bengal is part of politics aimed at polarisation in the run-up to next year's West Bengal assembly election. Both the ruling TMC and BJP are part of this binary politics. I condemn this violence and appeal to the people to maintain peace and communal harmony," Sarkar said.


A former All India Congress Committee secretary who succeeded Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as state PCC chief, Sarkar said if "the hurried manner" in which the waqf bill was passed by the Modi government had resulted in a sense of insecurity among many Muslims, in West Bengal the same issue was being "exploited by both the TMC and BJP leaderships" to create communal tension in order to cater to their respective vote-banks and shift the focus away from the Supreme Court order on teachers.

"The violence over the waqf issue is also happening at a time when the people of the state are agitated against the TMC government after the honourable SC cancelled the questionable appointments of 26,000 school teachers," he said. "Chief minister Mamata Banerjee should have taken moral responsibility and resigned after the SC order. Instead, now the focus has been shifted to violence," he said.