By IANS,
Kolkata : The Congress Monday expressed concern over the rise of communal politics in West Bengal in the light of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s resurgence in Jangipur Lok Sabha by-polls, where the Congress candidate Abhijit Mukherjee barely scraped through.
Accusing the BJP of fanning communal politics, the state Congress leadership said Bengal was facing a “dangerous political situation”.
The Congress Saturday managed to retain Jangipur, which fell vacant due to the elevation of Pranab Mukherjee to the post of the country’s president, with his son Abhijit winning by only 2,536 votes.
Pranab Mukherjee had retained the seat in the minority-dominated Murshidabad district by over 1.28 lakh votes in 2009.
BJP’s Sudhangshu Biswas polled 85,887 votes, which was over 10 percent of the valid votes. In 2009, the BJP had managed only two percent of the votes, which went up to four percent in the assembly elections last year.
State Congress leader and former state minister Manas Bhunia said the BJP’s rise posed a threat to the polity as also to the social fibre of West Bengal.
“It is a dangerous political situation. It is a threat to polity as well as the social and political fibre of West Bengal,” he said.
State Congress chief Pradip Bhattacharya said his party workers had to work hard to persuade the people of Jangipur not to vote on communal lines.
“We also had to explain that the setting up of Aligarh Muslim University will not only benefit Muslims but also Hindu students,” he said.