BJP lawmakers from Bengal on Monday hit the streets after their demand for an adjournment motion in the Assembly to discuss law and order situation in the state and attack on women in salishi sabhas was turned down.

The development comes two days after chief minister Mamata Banerjee advised her party men to become “social friends” with the people.

“We wanted to bring an adjournment motion to discuss the kangaroo courts that are being held by the ruling party leaders across the state, where women are being assaulted brutally and paraded naked. Our demand was the chief minister make a statement on the floor of the House,” said BJP legislator Agnimitra Paul. “The high court has said a team should be formed to probe the cases and bring an end to it.”

The adjournment motion was brought by women legislators of the BJP. Though they were allowed to read, the Speaker Biman Banerjee did not allow a discussion.

“Mondays are reserved for the home department but the chief minister [who holds the home portfolio] is never present. Where shall we raise these issues?” Paul asked.

Amid the sloganeering, the House was adjourned for the day and the BJP legislators held a sit-in demonstration.

On Sunday, at her annual July 21 show of strength rally, Mamata had asked her party workers to be friendly with the people. The appeal came more than 20 days after a Trinamul leader in North Dinajpur’s Chopra, some 130 km from the district headquarters, flogged a couple during a kangaroo court over an alleged extramarital affair.

“We want Trinamul Congress workers and leaders to be social friends of the people. I want those who are bibekban [conscientious]. I don’t want those who are bittoban [wealthy]. Do you know why? Because money comes and goes but there is no alternative to serving the people,” Mamata told the gathering at the rain-soaked afternoon on Sunday in the heart of Calcutta.

There is a reason why the bulk of the 40 minutes that she spoke from the dais on Sunday was devoted to looking inwards rather than focusing on the Opposition. The 2021 Assembly polls and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls have clearly established Mamata as her own opposition in the state. The BJP is the only established political party that still has some electoral relevance in Bengal. The rest don’t exist electorally.

One of the most valuable lessons that Mamata has learnt in her long stint in public life is that political fortunes don’t take long to overturn. In 2006, the erstwhile Left Front returned to power with the highest ever tally. Three years later, the communists were counting their days in power.

What prompted Mamata to look inward?

Soon after the Lok Sabha poll results were announced, a string of incidents have surfaced in Bengal. Some emerged from a not too distant past while others happened while the Trinamul leadership was busy celebrating its Lok Sabha polls victory. The ruling party has dismissed them as stray incidents.

Two men were lynched – one in the heart of Calcutta and the other in suburban Salt Lake – on two successive days towards the end of June. Those two incidents were preceded by attacks on men and women on suspicion of child kidnapping. The incidents occurred in Barasat, Khardah, Ashoknagar, Bongaon and Gaighata. A Bangladeshi businessman was abducted and butchered at a high-rise in the prized locality of Rajarhat-New Town.

Bengal which has a history of violence during and after polls has been no different this time too. Several Lok Sabha candidates of the BJP came under attack, stones pelted at them. Post-poll violence is almost normal in Bengal.

History of violence

“Violence is in the DNA of the Bengali people; Bengal has a culture of violence,” said political analyst Subhamay Maitra. “Not just Bengal, the political parties in Bangladesh and Tripura have proved this as well.

“Even during the Bengal renaissance, the reactions towards abolition of Sati, widow remarriage, or stopping childhood marriage were not always peaceful. There is a tendency towards violent movement,” he added.

In Chopra a local Trinamul leader named Tajemul Islam, infamously known by the acronym JCB, thrashed a couple during a salishi sabha – community gathering, aka kangaroo court. The incident happened in Lakshmipur, in one of the far-flung corners of the state. The allegation against the couple was that they were having an extramarital affair.

Days later, two women in South 24-Parganas Sonarpur accused a local Trinamul worker Jamaluddin Sardar – whose assets allegedly include a palatial house with CCTV cameras installed, a swimming pool and an annexe building – of tying women with metal chains and assaulting them. One of the victims lodged a complaint with the local police on July 12, three days after a similar salishi sabha was held.

At Ariadaha in the northern suburbs of Calcutta, a local Trinamul strongman Jayant Singh is accused of assaulting men and women – many of his violence acts apparently recorded on phone cameras and some of them date back to nine years ago – for any alleged offences committed by the victims, from alleged mobile theft to running a business.

On the same day of the complaint being lodged at Sonarpur, a couple who had married after divorcing their respective former spouses was thrashed by locals.

“It is not about a breakdown in law and order. There is no law and order in Bengal,” claimed Dilip Ghosh, former Bengal BJP president. “Police have no role to play at all. On hearing some names they refuse to take FIRs.”

He dismissed Mamata’s purification call as eyewash.

“Every time a similar incident happens she mouths some inane statements then everything is back to where it was. The government and administration cannot control these elements, because they are the ones who bring in the cash, who manage elections. The anti-socials have become the leaders,” the BJP leader declared.

‘Bengal’s law and order is definitely better than what it was’

The Trinamul has often cited the National Crime Records Bureau data which had in two consecutive years – 2021 and 2022 – declared Calcutta as the “safest city”.

Trinamul leader Kunal Ghosh dismissed all allegations against the party and the state government, claiming Bengal’s law and order was better than most states.

“Bengal’s law and order is definitely better than what it was during the Left rule. It is better than most BJP ruled states,” Ghosh told The Telegraph Online. “In society some things happen which are not always related to politics. In other instances some people take the law into their own hands. Question is what has the government and the party done about it? We have taken action.”

Ghosh rolled out a list of instances of lawlessness during the Left rule. “Mass-killings, gang-rapes took place. An incident like the Bowbazar blast happened. A truck carrying explosives was seized in Baranagar. Now things are much more peaceful.”