Hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for trying to 'communalise' the Malda incident, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Derek O'Brien on Monday maintained that the state government had handled the situation 'tactfully' and alleged that the charges against them were part of the BJP-RSS strategy of 'CIN-100'.
"This is part of the BJP-RSS CIN 100 strategy. Communally Insensitive Narrative (CIN), which they have launched 100 days before polls in Bengal. They tried the same thing in UP and Bihar and you saw the results," Brian told ANI here.
Asserting that the Malda incident was a criminal one, he accused the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of trying to paint is as a communal one in the past seven days and added that the state government had handled the situation quite tactfully.
"It's a sensitive border town. 10 arrests have been made and there have been no injuries or deaths. They are trying to communalise a criminal incident and we are not surprised. This is the BJP RSS strategy of trying to change the narrative with 100 days to go to polls," Brian added.
He further alleged that the BJP had a 'paid army' on Twitter which was working hard on communalising the 'sensitive' Malda incident.
Talking about the detention of a three-member fact-finding team of the BJP today, the TMC leader congratulated the Malda administration for stopping the team at the railway station this morning.
"They were not on any fact finding mission. We all know the difference between that and a communal fuel tensioning mission. I would like to congratulate the administration for not allowing them to enter the area," Brian said.
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The delegation arrived in Malda at 6:15 a.m. in the morning and in a span of three hours returned back to Kolkata.
"Our purpose was to restore confidence that nothing will happen in future. But due to the pressure from the state government the District Magistrate said that section144 has been promulgated and we can't go to that area. We were not here to instigate, but to console people. They said that we are public figures and by our appearance, it will be a problem," committee chairman S.S. Ahluwalia told ANI.
Meanwhile, the BJP said today that once the three member delegation returns, they would meet Home Minister Rajnath Singh with a request for the appropriate authorities to look into the incident.