Bengal BJP candidate hurt in road accident, party cries foul
Kolkata: Shantanu Thakur, the BJP candidate from West Bengal’s Bongaon Lok Sabha constituency, sustained head injury after his car collided head on with a vehicle bearing a police sticker on Saturday, party officials said.
The saffron party termed it a “staged accident” and claimed that there might be a conspiracy to kill Thakur ahead of the elections.
“Shantanu Thakur suffered serious head injury while on his way from Jagulia to Gaighata in North 24 Parganas district after his car was hit by a police vehicle coming from the opposite direction. He has been hospitalised,” state BJP Vice President Jay Prakash Majumdar said.
“We suspect there is a conspiracy behind this accident. The way a government vehicle with just the driver collided with Thakur’s car, it seems that the car was waiting for Thakur’s arrival. It is possible that the accident was staged to kill him,” Majumdar added.
The police said the car which collided with the BJP candidate’s vehicle was hired by the state administration for ferrying central force personnel within the constituency. They also said the injury sustained by Thakur was “not severe”.
“The vehicle was hired for ferrying central force personnel. However, only the driver was present in the car during the accident. The BJP candidate suffered head injury as he was on the front seat. The drivers of both the cars also sustained minor injuries,” an officer from Gaighata police station told IANS.
He also alleged that Thakur’s supporters agitated and vandalised a police vehicle when it reached the spot.
“His (Thakur’s) injury was apparently a minor one. No stitches were required. However, when our officers reached the spot, the BJP supporters attacked us and vandalised a police car. We have lodge a case against them,” he said.
The Bongaon parliamentary constituency will go to the polls on May 6. Thakur, the grandson of the late Matua matriarch Binapani Thakur, is locking horns with his aunt and sitting Trinamool Congress MP Mamata Bala Thakur.