Bengal BJP workers take shelter in safe houses after polls: ‘Election for us means season of leaving home’

Amid allegations of post-poll violence, hundreds of BJP workers in West Bengal have left their homes and villages after the election, and for many, this is not the first time – they did the same after the 2021 Assembly polls, and the 2023 panchayat polls.

The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the West Bengal Police to open a new email ID for victims of post-poll violence to register their complaints.

Also on Thursday, Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP MLA from Nandigram, said in a letter to Governor C V Ananda Bose that 10,000 BJP workers and their families were in safe houses – many of them party offices – after the results of Lok Sabha elections were announced.

The Indian Express visited two such safe houses – one in Baruipur and one in Kolkata.

At the Baruipur party office, Haldar and others were huddled in a hall on Friday, watching TV as Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a speech from New Delhi. The halls had big cutouts of Modi, Amit Shah, and the BJP’s Jadavpur candidate Anirban Ganguly. The TMC’s Saayoni Ghosh defeated Ganguly by 2,58,201 votes in the Jadavpur seat.

“I was forced to leave home in 2021 after the Assembly polls, and then after panchayat polls last year. I was able to get back home in April this year, but now once again, I am homeless,” said Halder, who works as a labourer.

On what made him leave home, he said, “Me and other workers from my village got threats before the Lok Sabha polls, but I still worked for the party. However, on June 2, after the last phase of polls, I left home. I later heard that my home was ransacked.”

Sitting next to Haldar, 36-year-old Mamoni Das said she has been doing this since 2016. “After the 2016 Assembly polls, local TMC leaders forced me out of my original home in Matherdighi village (in South 24 Parganas district). Then I lived in rented houses in Sahapara and later Kathpol, but we still got threats,” said Mamoni, the vice-president of the BJP’s Baruipur organisational district.

“On June 1, I went back to my village and voted. On the night of June 4, more than 50 goons surrounded my house. I hid myself, but the goons beat up my husband and my mother – both were injured. In the early hours of the next day, we left home again, and I took both of them to the hospital. Since then, this party office has been our home,” she said. She now lives at the party office with both her husband and mother.

Bikash Roy (38), who worked as an e-rickshaw driver in Vidyadhari Palli, under Jadavpur LS seat, said he fled after his e-rickshaw was taken away, allegedly by TMC-backed goons.

“After the election result was announced, we realised again that TMC would attack our houses… They came to my house and threatened us. They broke open the lock and took my toto (e-rickshaw) away. How will I earn a living now? That night, I left home and came here. My wife and children are at a relative’s house,” Roy said.

The three-storey BJP office in Baruipur, currently hosting 50 party workers, has been used as a safe house after almost every election since 2021. Around 45 km away, in Kolkata, is another safe house where over 100 party workers and their families now live. It is in a building near the BJP state headquarters.

Halls on the first and second floors of this building are filled with rows of beds. Among those occupying these beds are Shanu Pramanik, BJP Yuva Morcha secretary for Minakhan-1 Mondol of North 24 Parganas. Him and five other youths came to the safe house on Friday.

“After results were out on June 4, our houses were ransacked by TMC goons. I ran away before they could barge in. We then hid at our relative’s place, and at around 3 am today, we left and reached here at 1 pm. My family members are still there. They have asked us not to go back as threats continue to come in that we would be killed if we returned,” said Pramanik (31), who joined the BJP from the CPI(M) in 2014.

Bishnu Dhali (26), a leader of the BJP’s student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) said, “We were booth agents (in Basirhat Lok Sabha seat). BJP led in the five booths that were under us, and this is why we are being targeted. They could not find me at my home as I fled after the results. But they severely beat up my aunt. They also ransacked our house.”

In the Basirhat seat, S K Nurul Islam of the TMC defeated BJP’s Rekha Patra by 3,33,547 votes.

The TMC has denied accusations that it was involved in any attack on BJP workers.

“These are all false allegations. They are doing this to get media attention. All leaders of the TMC have given statements that we will not allow any attack on the Opposition,” senior TMC leader Firhad Hakim said.