The Hindu : Front Page : BJP headquarters attacked

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Friday, Dec 09, 2005

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BJP headquarters attacked

Special Correspondent

Party calls for protest against attack; RSS denies role

VENTING THEIR IRE: Amidst the broken furniture lying in the courtyard of the BJP State headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram after the vandalism witnessed there on Thursday is a box in which the party had invited its workers to deposit complaints relati ng to the party's poll debacle in the recent Lok Sabha byelection. Photo: C. Ratheesh kumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A gang of about 25 persons, claiming allegiance to the RSS, attacked the BJP State headquarters here on Thursday in an apparent escalation of faction fight in the State unit of the party.

The attack took place against the background of ongoing inquiry by a three- member party commission into the erosion of party votes in the recent

byelection from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency.

The attackers, who reached the BJP office in the afternoon, broke the box kept in front of the office by the commission to collect testimonies from party functionaries. They threw out furniture and the office telephone and shouted slogans in favour of party secretary (organisation-South) P. P. Mukundan and against former Union Minister of State O. Rajagopal. The gang threatened that it would picket Mr. Rajagopal unless he withdrew the allegations he had made against Mr. Mukundan. The police later arrested 16 persons who remained in the office compound for more than an hour. District karyavah of the RSS Ravi Kumar reached the spot and held consultations before the police moved in to arrest the attackers. The party then filed a complaint with the police.

The BJP later called for a State-wide protest against the attack. Spokesman of the BJP B. K. Sekhar said that the attackers were `goondas.' They were neither the BJP nor the RSS workers. The spokesman said the police had refrained from arresting the attackers even after reaching the office. The arrests were made only after party vice-president V. N. Unni contacted the Police Commissioner.

He said that a gang could not have launched such an attack without the influence and support of the ruling United Democratic Front.

Regional secretary of the RSS P. Rajasekharan, while talking to newsmen here, said the RSS was no way linked to the attack on the BJP State office here. No RSS worker was among those arrested by the police according to the information he had.

<167,3p,1>The regional secretary, who is in charge of the organisation in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Punalur, said the RSS was being unnecessarily dragged into this and other incidents in Thiruvananthapuram. The organisation did not get involved in such matters. It would inquire why its name got dragged into the incident

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