Kolkata: The All India Forward Bloc on Tuesday hit back at Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya for calling its members “goons”, asserting that ideological opposition should not be labelled as hooliganism. The party urged Bhattacharya to exercise restraint. Author Chandrachur Ghose, who has written several books on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, also criticised Bhattacharya’s remarks.Bhattacharya, addressing a programme on Syama Prasad Mookerjee at Muralidhar Sen Lane on Monday said, “Syama Prasad was giving a speech at Md Ali Park. Forward Bloc’s goons pelted stones at him and made him bleed from the wound. Had Mookerjee given any statement to incite the crowd, Forward Bloc members wouldn’t have survived that day. But Syama Prasad pacified them even while he was bleeding. He had asked people to give a befitting reply in the ballot paper.”The remarks received sharp criticism from Forward Bloc, which countered that there were “no goons in the party”. In a Facebook post, the party said, “we have workers who follow Netaji and want to build a nation of his dreams”.“It is a historically distorted statement,” the party’s national general secretary G Devarajan said over phone. “It is a historical fact that during the 1940 Calcutta Municipal Corporation election, Syama Prasad tried to mobilise support by appealing to communal sentiments. He tried to divide the people of Bengal on communal lines, and the Forward Bloc resisted that attempt. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose repeatedly warned Syama Prasad against making statements that could inflame communal passions,” Devarajan said, demanding that Bhattacharya review and retract his allegations.Later on Tuesday, Bhattacharya doubled down on his remarks at a separate event, maintaining that the historical attackers of Mookerjee were indeed “goons”. “When Hindus were being tortured in Bangladesh between 1937 and 1939, Syama Prasad approached Subhas Chandra Bose and Sarat Bose, requesting them to raise their voices and issue statements to protect them. Neither listened to Mookerjee,” Bhattacharya claimed and added, “While Mookerjee had not entered politics by that time, Subhas Bose realised that Mookerjee’s Hindu Mahasabha would break Congress supporters. He said that if a new political party is formed by Syama Prasad, he would kill it before it is born.”“I would not name who ordered to pelt stones at Syama Prasad at Md Ali Park that day as that would create a new debate, but history is cruel and objective,” Bhattacharya said on Tuesday pointing out that Mookerjee’s party (BJP as an extension of Jana Sangh) has now assumed the office in Bengal. “When Nazrul Islam was unwell and nobody looked after him, Mookerjee donated the entire fund he had kept to perform the last rites of his father,” Bhattacharya said.
