A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of spreading fear over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) following the alleged suicide of a man near Kolkata, Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari claimed on Wednesday that the death was unrelated to the NRC issue.
Adhikari said the deceased, Pradeep Kar (57), whose body was found hanging at his residence in Panihati, North 24 Parganas district, on Tuesday, had his name in the 2002 electoral rolls and had voted in that year’s assembly elections in the Panihati constituency.
Adhikari, a senior BJP leader and staunch critic of Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, told reporters that the state’s ruling party was "peddling lies" over the tragic death for political gain.
"Kar's death is in no way related to the issue of NRC and SIR (Special Intensive Revision). The unfortunate incident must be due to some other reasons," he told reporters here. "The TMC has built up false narratives in an insensitive manner. The people of Bengal will give a befitting reply to such propaganda," the Nandigram MLA asserted.
Barrackpore Police Commissionerate Muralidhar Sharma earlier said Kar was found hanging at his residence in Panihati on Tuesday morning. A suicide note was found in which NRC was mentioned, Sharma said, adding that preliminary investigations revealed the person was in depression following the announcement of the SIR of the electoral rolls on Monday.
Condemning what she described as the BJP's "politics of fear and division," the Chief Minister alleged on Tuesday that the party's campaign around the NRC has created panic among the public. "It shakes me to the very core to imagine how, for years, BJP has tormented innocent citizens with the threat of NRC, spreading lies, stoking panic and weaponising insecurity for votes," Banerjee said in a social media post.
She charged the BJP with turning "constitutional democracy into a theatre of fear" and said the "tragic death" was the result of "venomous propaganda."
Responding sharply to the Chief Minister's comments, BJP's IT cell chief Amit Malviya accused Banerjee of "resorting to lies and theatrics" over the incident.
"The tragic death of Pradeep Kar must be investigated thoroughly— the cause of suicide can and must be determined only by the law and investigating agencies, not through political rhetoric," Malviya said in a post on X.
"Let's also get the facts right - there is NO NRC anywhere in the country. Mamata Banerjee is lying and deliberately spreading panic to stoke fear among people for political gain," he added. Malviya alleged that it was the TMC, and not the BJP, that "weaponised fear" by exploiting the anxieties of poor Hindu refugees who fled religious persecution and sought shelter in India.
Also read: Mamata links man's suicide to NRC fear, draws backlash
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