A Trinamool minister and a BJP MP exchanged verbal volleys stalling traffic on the Vidyasagar Setu around 9pm on Friday and accusing each other of throwing their weight around and misbehaviour.

The altercation between the BJP’s Tamluk MP, former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, and Trinamool MLA Babul Supriyo over alleged rash driving left rows of vehicles stranded on the Howrah-bound flank of the bridge for close to half an hour on Friday night.

Senior police officers had to intervene before the two elected representatives moved their cars away.

Gangopadhyay was travelling in a car bearing the label “Tamluk MP”. Supriyo’s car did not have any such board, the police said.

Supriyo alleged Gangopadhyay’s car was moving down the Vidyasagar Setu rashly flashing a beacon and blowing a hooter. Moving at a high speed, the car allegedly almost hit his as well as passing motorcyclists, when Supriyo decided to pull up to the side and stop the vehicle to find out who was inside.

“I was driving down the Setu when I noticed a car moving rashly, blowing a hooter loudly and overtaking other vehicles dangerously,” Supriyo told reporters. “I would have possibly ended up hitting a two-wheeler while trying to give way to the vehicle.”

The Trinamool MLA, also the state’s minister in charge of information and technology and electronics, said he stopped the car to ask the driver what the hurry was that he had to speed using a hooter.

Supriyo said he stepped out of his car and walked a few steps and found the board “Tamluk MP” on the car.

“I found someone from behind instructing the driver to get going and then spotted Abhijit Gangopadhyay in the rear seat. I have never had any interaction with him in the past and there is no enmity between us,” the minister said.

“I just wanted to tell him to tell the driver not to drive so rashly. But I couldn’t because he started abusing me and my family. This was unexpected. He said whatever he did was right and, if I could, I could do whatever was possible.”

Supriyo said when Gangopadhyay abused his family, he told him as a retired
judge he couldn’t do so and demanded an apology.

“During the heated altercation, I returned some of the abuses and did a few gharwapsis. But I did not abuse or insult his family,” the minister said.

“He has said I was drunk when everyone is aware that I don’t drink. He kept telling the CRPF to arrest me during the altercation.”

Supriyo said he told the MP that the red and blue beacon placed on the car was illegal and that only police could use it.

“To which he asked me if I knew the spelling of beacon,” Supriyo said. “I told him not to be presumptuous.”

Gangopadhyay, who quit the judiciary and joined the BJP weeks before the 2024 general election, said there were three-four others with the minister when the latter got out of his car.

“After getting out of his car Babul Supriyo walked up and started abusing me. My car’s windows were rolled down. He swayed one of his hands. A mobile phone that I was holding on to, fell and got partly damaged,” Gangopadhyay said.

“My security stopped him. A heated altercation then followed. This went on for some time,” he said.

The Tamluk MP said Supriyo asked him to plead guilty to using a hooter and say sorry.

“I said I won’t say anything to him. There is no question of saying sorry. I told him ‘You have been sacked from the BJP. You held the feet of Trinamool to remain in politics. Continue doing that’. I said ‘If needed, I would get him arrested’,” Gangopadhyay said.

The former judge said Supriyo got agitated at this and tried gathering people before instigating them against him.

“He was drunk and a breathalyser test should have been conducted on him. When I told him that he shouldn’t be driving in a drunken state, he abused me saying it was not with my money that he was drunk,” the BJP MP said.

“He said he won’t allow my car to move. I told him fine, I won’t and neither will you.”

As the two elected representatives were locked in a verbal duel on the bridge, traffic sergeants and senior officers from the Hastings police station reached the spot, close to the toll plaza, alarmed at the rows of vehicles stuck on the Howrah-bound flank.

“We requested both of them to finish with the spat and allow the cars to move. By then, a snarl had formed and unless the issue was resolved, the effect would have been felt on AJC Bose Road,” said a senior police officer.