Five BJP MPs are the target of a second official complaint filed by the Kolkata Police for allegedly mocking the National Anthem during a protest in the state assembly. Niladri Sekhar Dana, Dipak Burman, Manoj Tigga, Sankar Ghosh, and Sudip Kumar Mukherjee are the MLAs mentioned in the FIR.
A lawsuit was previously filed against 12 BJP MLAs, including Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in West Bengal, for allegedly insulting the national anthem on the grounds of the state assembly. The Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 both have clauses under which the FIR was filed.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders filed the FIR after claiming that on November 29, during a TMC demonstration headed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, BJP MLAs started a counter-protest and screamed “chor chor” (thieves). The workers’ funds under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) were being withheld by the Centre, which sparked the protest.
The national anthem was playing as the protest was coming to an end, but the BJP MLAs didn’t stop chanting against the members of the ruling party. This led the TMC to accuse the BJP lawmakers of demeaning the National Anthem in the House and send a formal protest to West Bengal Assembly Speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay.
TMC leader Kunal Ghosh responded to the allegations brought against the BJP MLAs by telling news outlet ANI, “The Bengali people are aware that Suvendu Adhikari is a crook. The BJP only made the footage public after labeling him a thief.”
“Suvendu Adhikari joined the BJP in order to evade being arrested. The national anthem was disregarded by all of them. That’s the reason the case was filed legally,” he stated.
