Kolkata:
The ABVP leadership on Monday accused the Trinamool Congress and its students wing of letting loose a reign of terror in a bid to stop the saffron outfit from opening its units in colleges of the state.
The Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), however, denied the charge of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, students’ wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
“The TMC student’s wing has been trying hard to stop us from opening units in colleges. But we are receiving huge response from the students. Right now, we have units in around 500 colleges. In the coming days we would open units in more colleges of the state,” ABVP national general secretary Ashish Chauhan told a press conference here.
While the TMCP controls the majority of the student unions in the colleges of the state, the students wings of the CPI(M) and the Congress unit have also influence in some.
“We would also contest upcoming student body elections in the state,” he said.
The ABVP organised its two-day central working committee meeting here from Saturday. Buoyed by the BJP’s success in the Lok Sabha polls, the ABVP has planned to increase its presence in Bengal in the days to come.
The saffron party won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the general elections, just four less than the state’s ruling TMC.
“It is unprecedented the way our members are being attacked and arrested in false cases. The kind of terror tactics that is being used against us is condemnable in a democracy,” Chauhan said.
Everybody has the right to follow an ideology and politics of his or her choice and the TMC cannot stop the ABVP from doing that, he said.
Reacting to the charges, TMCP state unit president Trinankur Bhattacharya said, “The allegations of the ABVP is baseless. They do not have any base in the state. That is why they are cooking up such stories.”
The ABVP also announced to expand it’s Mission Sahasi programme in West Bengal, under which it aims to train 50,000 girl students across the state in martial arts. The programme will start from next month.
Mission Sahasi is a self-defence training programme for women in the age group of 13 to 25.
“Last year under Mission Sahasi program we had trained 1,100 girl students. This year we have set a target of training 50,000 girl students across the state. We have sent letters to many schools and colleges and have received a positive response,” said Payel Dhar, who looks after the Bengal chapter of the project.
The ABVP also accused the TMC government of failing to protect women in the state.
