The Kolkata Police arrested 26 people, including civil rights and anti-CAA activists, on Friday, 1 April, for allegedly gathering at Park Circus to take out a rally urging people not to vote for Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate Babul Supriyo in the upcoming Ballygunge bypolls. They were released the same evening.
The former Union minister who had quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the TMC's candidate for the 12 April bypolls.
Some of the arrested persons had participated in the "No vote to BJP” campaign, which was conducted ahead of the Bengal Assembly polls in 2021.
Prasenjit Bose, one of the organisers of the rally, told The Telegraph that the protesters had permission to conduct a rally in support of Independent candidate Swapan Adhikari and to urge the people of Ballygunge not to vote for Supriyo or the BJP.
'Gross Misuse of Police Power'
However, the police disrupted the gathering and made the arrests even before the rally had started. Bose said, "It's a gross misuse of police power."
Another activist said: "Supriyo is a supporter of CAA and NRC. He is a communal person. Trinamool failed the secular people of Bengal."
The Ballygunge Assembly seat fell vacant after Subrata Mukherjee, who was a Cabinet minister in the Banerjee government, passed away in November 2021.
(With inputs from The Telegraph.)
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