Satyapriya De Sarkar, a gastrointestinal surgeon, rarely attends meetings or rallies. Sarkar completed eight surgeries on Tuesday from 7.30am and was on College Street by 2pm to speak at a street corner meeting with the call “No Vote to BJP”.

Sitansu Sekhar, a documentary filmmaker, was present at College Street’s Coffee House on Monday evening when a group of alleged BJP supporters first defaced and then tore “No Vote to BJP” posters pasted on the walls of the Coffee House building. Sekhar was also present on College Street on Tuesday to tell people what had happened.

What brought Sarkar, Sekhar and many others to the meeting was the need to unveil the “undemocratic and violent” nature of the BJP. If the party is voted to power in the state, they would target all the platforms for debate like Indian Coffee House, they said.

Satyapriya De Sarkar, a gastrointestinal surgeon, at the ‘No Vote to BJP’ meeting on College Street on Tuesday Bishwarup Dutta

Tuesday’s street-corner meeting was held in protest against the alleged vandalism of “No Vote to BJP” posters by BJP supporters. The participants in the meeting pasted fresh posters with the words “No Vote to BJP” written in bold.

They also wrote posters sitting on the road urging people to rise against the BJP’s alleged attempts to occupy all addresses associated with Bengal’s tradition of spirited debates.

“I am not a regular in rallies but I felt like coming today. If the BJP comes to power, they will not allow us to stand here and hold a meeting criticising them. The basic right to protest will be taken away. You and I will not be able to say anything they do not approve of,” Sarkar said, standing on the road outside the gate of the Coffee House building as the audience nodded in approval.

He later told The Telegraph that he was also appalled at how the BJP-led Centre was promo-ting anti-science theories and practices.

“The Centre has decided to allow ayurveda practitioners to conduct complex surgeries. This will be dangerous for people’s health if implemented. There have been individuals in earlier governments in the country who practised unscientific things, but no government ever gave a legal stamp to anything so unscientific,” said Sarkar.

Sekhar narrated Monday evening’s sequence of events as an eyewitness.

“When I arrived at Coffee House, I found that most of the seats were occupied by men wearing saffron T-shirts with the slogan Modi r Para (Modi’s locality) written on them. The crowd started thinning soon, but an acquaintance came up from below and said that these men were painting black over the words ‘No’ in ‘No Vote to BJP’ posters,” he said.

“The men were shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans. They also tore some of the posters. Some of us protested and there were heated exchanges. The men were also abusing us and they left gradually,” said Sekhar.

Campaigners paste ‘No Vote to BJP’ posters on the walls of the Coffee House building Bishwarup Dutta

“We have to be wary. The first thing that the BJP will do if they come to power is that they will take over control of places like Coffee House, where debates and dissenting opinions are expressed. They want conformity,” he said.

Madhurima Bakshi, a college teacher who had protested against the BJP supporters on Monday, was also among the speakers. “When I protested they started addressing me as ‘tui’,” she said.

Some of the defaced posters were still pasted on the walls along the staircase leading to Coffee House. The protesters pasted fresh posters covering the defaced ones and vowed to put up such posters across the city.

“How many posters will the BJP supporters deface?” said one of the speakers.