Bengal: BJP slams arrest of Congress spokesman over social media posts

The West Bengal unit of the BJP has come out in support of a Congress spokesman in the state,

after he was arrested on Thursday for making a series of social media posts against prominent persons associated with the state government, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Sanmoy Banerjee made social media posts critical of Mamata, her nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee and senior TMC minister Partha Chatterjee. Sanmoy had also criticised former Kolkata Police commissioner and chief of CID in West Bengal, Rajeev Kumar, for not surrendering before the CBI. He also criticised state home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay.

Curiously, Sanmoy, who is a resident of Kharda in North 24 Parganas district, was picked up from his residence by Purulia Police. This was because the case against him was registered not at his home district or in Kolkata, but far away at Purulia where there is no impact of the case.

The entire state again rose in protest against the arrest of a person for voicing concern on social media without using any abusive words. "I can only pray that he is released immediately. I will wait for it," poet Mandakranta Sen wrote on her social media account.

The Left parties and Congress have been vocal about the arrest of Sanmoy. But, surprisingly, the BJP has raised the strongest voice against the targeting of the Congress activist.

“The Mamata Banerjee regime is only for oppression and putting innocents in jail,” said national secretary Rahul Sinha.

State party vice president Jayprakash Majumdar and fashion designer-turned BJP leader Agnimitra Paul went to Sanmoy's house and met his family.

Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) general secretary, said in Kolkata that both the TMC and BJP are hand-in-glove on the issue of throttling free speech. He also compared Sanmoy's arrest to the arrest of Congress leader P. Chidambaram by the CBI.

“Mr Chidambaram was very vocal against the BJP and he had to pay a price for it. So is the TMC here. They are doing the same like BJP in Delhi,” said Yechury.

It was the fifth such arrest of people expressing criticism or making caricatures on social media during Mamata Banerjee's tenure. It started with the arrest of a Jadavpur University professor, a poor farmer of Midnapore, a youth in Malda and a BJP youth leader in Kolkata. Interestingly, the West Bengal government decided to do the same with Sanmoy, despite vocal disapproval from the High Court and Supreme Court over the previous cases regarding the harassment of people merely exercising their freedom of speech and expression.

Interestingly, Mamata had repeatedly criticised the Narendra Modi government over alleged intolerance.

"But she is doing the same thing here. It seems she has not learned from the past," said state Congress president Somen Mitra.

Another issue is that the cases slapped against Sanmoy Banerjee are bailable in nature, but he has been remanded to two days police custody by a court in Purulia, which accepted the prayer of the Purulia Police.