The ruling Trinamul Congress on Friday remained in denial mode refusing to accept the involvement of party workers in the violence and vandalism at the Presidency University on Wednesday.
“I am saying this with full responsibility that no Trinamul Congress worker was involved in the incident. Stones were thrown from inside the campus to provoke violence. Who had thrown the stone on the peaceful protests at College Street is behind investigated,” industry minister Partha Chatterjee said, adding that the police was looking for a youth named Pappu in this connection.
Minister of state for railway Adhir Chowdhury said that the Mamata Banerjee government was trying to shield party workers. “I challenge her to give a free hand to the police and I can tell you that the real culprits behind the Presidency vandalism will be identified,” he said.
Meanwhile, refusing to succumb to the government’s pressure, the university authorities on Friday maintained that those who had unleashed terror on the campus were holding Trinamul Congress flags. On Thursday, three senior ministers—Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee and Bratya Basu- mounted pressure on the varsity authorities in their bid to silence them because they had been persistently holding Trinamul Congress activists responsible for the vanadlism.
Mr Chatterjee and Mr Basu tried to put the blame on the CPI(M). “Those who can go to Delhi to attack the chief minister and the state finance minister, can go to any length to malign the Trinamul Congress,” Mr Chatterjee said.
The education minister claimed that the Presidency vandalim may be a CPI(M) ploy to divert the attention after the brutal attack on the sate finance minister. “If I hold a CPI(M) flag will I become a CPI(M) leader?” Mr Basu asked. The registrar of Presidency University Prabir Dasgupta said that it was not his duty to find out whether those holding Trinamul Congress flags were actually Trinamul supporters.
He also rejected Mr Chatterjee’s complaint that vice-chancellor Malabika Sarkar and regristrar Dasgupta spoke to the media instead of first informing the governor ( chancellor) about the attack.