The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a notice to the West Bengal government, asking it to respond to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s appeal against a Calcutta High Court order restraining the party from conducting rath yatras in the state.
According to reports, the Supreme Court bench of Justices L. Nageshwar Rao and S. K. Kaul has asked the BJP state unit to submit a revised plan of its “Ganatantra Bachao Yatras” to the state government. The court posted the matter for hearing on January 15.
The Bharatiya Janata Pary’s West Bengal unit had gone to the Supreme Court after the Calcutta High Court had denied permission to hold rallies in the state. The Supreme Court had also refused an early hearing in December when BJP had approached it.
BJP had planned three grand rallies from different parts of the State, travelling across the State’s 42 parliamentary constituencies over one-and-a-half months to protest against the Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress government.
Amit Shah was supposed to flag them off from Cooch Behar on December 7and PM Modi was meant to end the campaign by addressing a rally in Kolkata. The state police and administration had then denied permission citing threats of ‘communal disharmony’ in the state.
The BJP had alleged in the plea that the state government was repeatedly attacking the fundamental right of citizens due to which different petitions have been filed challenging the state government’s order to deny permission to hold yatras.
The BJP in its petition had stated that the party has been facing severe “political vendetta” by the ruling All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) Party since the year 2014, with permissions being denied to it at the last minute with the sole intention of harassing it. In its plea, the BJP accused the executives in the State as “political agents” of the ruling party and asserted that they intentionally did not respond to letters sent by the BJP seeking permission to conduct the yatras.
