Supporters of West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the opposition BJP reportedly clashed on Sunday evening at Sakherbazar, on the southwestern outskirts of Kolkata.
The confrontation is said
to have erupted over the use of microphones by a local club, which some claimed were being operated at high volume.
During the clash, a makeshift stage that had hosted a public meeting earlier in the day by former Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb was allegedly set on fire. One fire tender was pressed into service to control the blaze, according to an official at the scene.
Ratna Chatterjee, TMC MLA from the Behala Purba constituency, told reporters that some BJP supporters had confronted members of the club during a badminton tournament. “The Trinamool Congress will make its stance harder, the more they resort to such tactics,” she said after visiting the venue.
Local BJP leaders, however, accused TMC workers of deliberately setting the stage ablaze. The stage had been used earlier for Deb’s public meeting, held as part of the saffron party’s ‘Parivartan Sankalp Yatra’ ahead of the West Bengal assembly elections.
Meanwhile, the BJP’s West Bengal unit blamed the TMC for the attack on the public meeting.
“TMC miscreants vandalised the venue and even set the stage ablaze in a public market area,” the party wrote on X.
Democracy in Bengal under TMC: BJP public meeting attacked, stages set on fire.
After Shri Biplab Kumar Deb’s Sankalp Sabha in Behala, TMC miscreants vandalised the venue and even set the stage ablaze in a public market area. pic.twitter.com/AkpaplVqt7
— BJP West Bengal (@BJP4Bengal) January 25, 2026
BJP leader Amit Malviya also alleged that the actions were part of a pattern of political intimidation by TMC workers.
“Fearing an impending defeat, TMC goons have once again unleashed political terror on the streets of Kolkata… This is not politics. This is organised violence. This is not governance. This is fear-mongering. TMC has reduced Bengal to a theatre of terror. Mamata Banerjee’s goons are rampaging across the state, torching democracy in a desperate bid to cling to power. TMC is pure evil.” Malviya wrote.
(With inputs from PTI)
