‘BJP Brace Yourselves’: Blame game after Mamata Banerjee's attack charge

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been seen in a hospital with her left leg in a cast in a photo tweeted by her nephew Abhishek Banerjee this morning, a day after she was allegedly attacked in Nandigram, where she filed her nomination for the state election later this month.

Abhishek Banerjee, a Trinamool Congress MP, shared the image with a message targeting the BJP, which has mounted an aggressive campaign to try and oust the two-time Chief Minister and her Trinamool Congress from power in Bengal, reports NDTV.

"BJP brace yourselves to see the power of people of BENGAL on Sunday, May 2nd. Get ready," he tweeted.

Mamata Banerjee said last evening she was pushed by four or five people against her car and had the door shut on her at a time when there were no police personnel around her, according to NDTV.

Asked if it was a planned attack, she said, "Of course it is a conspiracy... there were no policemen around me".

The BJP, which had blamed the Trinamool after its chief JP Nadda's convoy came under an attack in Bengal in December, called the incident a stunt by Bengal's ruling party.

"Not one eye witness seems to corroborate Mamata Banerjee's 'attack' version. People of Nandigram are upset and angry at her for blaming them and bringing disrepute," tweeted Bengal BJP.

"Is it Taliban that her convoy was attacked? Huge police force accompanies her. Who can get near her?" said state BJP vice-president Arjun Singh. "Four IPS officers are her security in-charge and must be suspended. Attackers don't appear out of nowhere, they have to be arrested... She did drama for sympathy," he added.

The Election Commission has asked the Bengal administration for a report by Friday on the attack on the Chief Minister who has Z-Plus security.

The incident intensifies a nerve-wracking political battle in Nandigram, which has become the epicentre of the Mamata Banerjee versus BJP fight that is the theme of the Bengal election starting March 27.

The Chief Minister has been challenged in Nandigram by her former aide-turned-BJP rival Suvendu Adhikari.

Adhikari won the Nandigram seat in 2016 as a Trinamool candidate and his supporters have pitched Mamata Banerjee as an "outsider".

Fighting that label, the Chief Minister has been campaigning in the area that catapulted her party to power in 2011 following an agitation against farmland acquisition.  

The elections in Bengal will be held in a record eight rounds over 33 days. The results will be declared on May 2.