A BJP worker from Bhagabanpur of East Midnapore was allegedly killed by Trinamul-backed goons on Saturday night.

The saffron camp has called for a 10-hour bandh from 6am in Bhagabanpur on Monday in protest. Trinamul has denied the charges.

According to BJP leaders, party worker Chandan Maity, 35, was abducted while on his way home on Saturday night in Bhagabanpur’s Mohammadpur I, taken to the banks of a local river and thrashed.

Police recovered an injured Maity and took him to Bhagabanpur block hospital and then to the Tamluk district hospital. There, doctors declared him dead.

Maity’s bereaved father said he received a call around 8pm and left home.

“He lay injured for a long time. Police reached the spot some three hours later, and we were informed after that. If the police reached on time, my son would have lived,” his elderly father Prabhat said.

The BJP leadership has claimed Maity was being targeted by Trinamul since the Assembly polls as it was because of workers like him that Rabindranath Maity of the BJP defeated Trinamul’s Ardhendu Maity by 27,549 votes.

According to a BJP statement, Maity named six men in his “dying declaration” while on his way to the hospital. The BJP’s Purulia MP and state general-secretary Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato, who visited the Maity family on Sunday, said many candlelight protests were held across Tamluk and Bhagabanpur on Sunday.

Abhijit Das, chairman of Trinamul’s Contai organisational district, blamed BJP’s “factional feud” for the death. “Police will take action against the criminals,” he said.

The police have started a murder case.

East Midnapore district police chief Amarnath K. said Maity’s body has been sent for autopsy. Sources in the police said Maity had also been stabbed with a sharp object.

According to the BJP, Maity is the 54th party worker murdered in the aftermath of the Bengal polls.