Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee has alleged that his residence in Kolkata was attacked by workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the early hours of Saturday, describing the incident as the seventh attempt on his life in the last six months.
The Diamond Harbour MP said the attack took place around 2 am at his home in the Kalighat area, during his birthday celebrations, hours after he had released a video claiming that unidentified individuals had been conducting reconnaissance of his office and residence for two days.
Banerjee shared videos of the incident on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, showing a group of people tearing down banners and posters bearing his name outside his residence. In his posts, he alleged that the attackers threw his supporters to the ground and beat them up with brickbats, and claimed that some of them were carrying revolvers and had a premeditated intent to kill him.
He wrote that after two days of continuous recce, this is how BJP hooligans attacked his house at 2 am today, and asked viewers to watch the footage and see for themselves. He added that if this is what can happen to an elected Member of Parliament, the plight of the common man in West Bengal can be imagined.
According to Trinamool workers, the trouble began when BJP supporters raised chor-chor slogans, meaning thief-thief, outside the residence at around 2.30 am, triggering a shouting match between workers of the two parties. The confrontation then escalated into a clash in which banners and cutouts of Banerjee were vandalised. Police personnel reached the Kalighat area following the allegations, and police said the situation was brought under control.
Banerjee himself came outside at around 2.45 am and remained there until 6 am, returning inside only at the request of the police after the authorities released a detained Trinamool worker.
The attack, if Banerjee's account is accepted, came a day after he had raised the alarm about surveillance around his home and office. On Friday, November 6, he posted a video purporting to show unidentified individuals conducting a recce of his residence and office, and said that when confronted, the individuals identified themselves as police personnel.
He described the matter as a suspected conspiracy and demanded an immediate and thorough investigation to establish the identities of those involved, to identify who had directed the alleged surveillance, and to determine its purpose. He tagged the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, the Kolkata Police, the Union Home Ministry and the West Bengal Police in his post, drawing their attention to what he called an extremely serious matter.
In his posts on Saturday morning, Banerjee was unsparing in his criticism of the police and the judiciary. He alleged that there has been no police action and no judicial intervention despite what he described as repeated attacks on him, and said hooligans are running riot across the state because the judiciary continues to turn a blind eye.
Thanking the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court of India for remaining mute spectators, he said the attack had taken place right under the watch of the Kolkata Police. His remarks mark an unusually direct attack by a senior opposition leader on the higher judiciary, and they are likely to draw a sharp response from the ruling party and from legal circles.
Banerjee also placed the incident in the context of what he says is a pattern of attacks on him over the past six months. He said this was the seventh attempt on his life in that period. Among the earlier incidents he has cited is one on June 19, when he was returning to Delhi from Sonarpur and an attempt was made on his life by individuals armed with guns.
He was also assaulted in May during a visit to Sonarpur. The Trinamool leader has not provided independent evidence for the claim that all seven incidents were attempts on his life, and the police have not confirmed that characterisation of the earlier episodes.
The BJP has firmly rejected Banerjee's allegations. The party called the incident a drama, and Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh was among those who dismissed the Trinamool MP's account. The BJP's position is that Banerjee staged the episode, a charge that the Trinamool has rejected.
The competing claims mean that the facts of what happened outside the Kalighat residence in the early hours of Saturday remain contested, with Banerjee's videos and the police's own account likely to be central to any inquiry.
The incident has sharply raised political temperatures in West Bengal, where the rivalry between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP has frequently spilled into street confrontations. Banerjee, the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the national general secretary of the Trinamool Congress, is one of the most prominent opposition leaders in the state and a central figure in the party's organisation.
His residence in Kalighat is in the same neighbourhood as the Chief Minister's home, and any incident there carries political weight beyond the immediate clash.
The timing of the incident is also significant. It took place during Banerjee's birthday celebrations, when supporters had gathered outside his home, and it followed his public allegation of surveillance by unidentified persons. Whether the two are connected, as Banerjee claims, or whether the clash was a spontaneous confrontation between rival party workers that escalated, is a question that only a proper investigation can answer.
The Trinamool leader has demanded such an investigation, and the Kolkata Police will face pressure to establish what happened, who was involved, and whether any firearms were present, as Banerjee has alleged.
For now, the episode has produced a familiar pattern in West Bengal politics: a dramatic allegation by a senior leader, a flat denial by the rival party, criticism of the police for failing to prevent the incident, and a debate about the role of the courts. Banerjee has said he will upload more videos of the incident shortly. The police have said the situation is under control, but they have not yet given a detailed public account of the events of the night.
Until they do, the competing versions offered by the Trinamool and the BJP will continue to shape the political argument around an incident that has once again put the spotlight on political violence in the state.
(Reporting based on NDTV and The Indian Express.)