Bengal BJP chief gets emotional over party workers’ killings

Kolkata, July 7 (IANS) West Bengal BJP President Dilip Ghosh, known for his firebrand image, got emotional while talking about the recurrent killings of his party workers in the state in recent years and said they are forced to walk the "path of thrones" that would lead them to success.

While delivering a speech during the saffron party's membership drive programme at a city auditorium, he said the party has achieved "significant success" here in the 2019 polls at the cost of the party workers' lives.

"It is a sad time for me. Almost every day I have to garland the dead bodies of our party activists. It is true that our party has grown significantly in the state. But that has happened at the cost of dozens of our party workers' lives," Ghosh said as his voice choked and he barely managed to control his tears.

"There is no doubt that we have achieved political success but I feel guilty for this situation. But the path that we are walking on is not filled with flowers, it is filled with thrones. We would have to take this path sometimes as at the end of it awaits what we all have been fighting for," he added.

Political violence has been rampant across the state before, during and after the 2019 polls with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool trading charges on one another. It increased manyfolds after the BJP's massive rise which saw them win 18 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats, up from just two in the 2014 polls.

BJP's state leadership have claimed that 19 of their workers have been murdered by the state's ruling Trinamool Congress workers since the poll results were announced on May 23.

The saffron party has held several protest demonstrations across the state against the killings of its workers while some demanded President's Rule in West Bengal.