Bus Carrying TMC Workers To Delhi Protest Meets With Accident, Several Injured

The bus veered off the road and went down to a field behind the highway, leaving a few passengers slightly injured.

Several Trinamool Congress workers sustained minor injuries.

Source : X/@DrSukantaBJP

New Delhi: Several Trinamool Congress workers sustained injuries on Sunday when one of the 49 buses transporting them from West Bengal to Delhi for a protest program was involved in an accident in Jharkhand, according to news agency PTI.

The bus veered off the road and went down to a field behind the highway, leaving a few passengers slightly injured. The workers were taken back to Purulia town in West Bengal for medical treatment, a party leader said.

According to TMC, as the Railways did not allot a special train, the party workers were forced to take the protestors by the bus to Delhi to demand the state’s dues from the BJP-led central government under the 100-day job guarantee programme under MGNREGA, reported PTI.

Following the accident, the incident has triggered backlash from Bengal's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president and MP Sukanta Majumdar, who claimed that while TMC leaders were travelling by airplanes, the protesters were being made to take buses to Delhi.

"The way TMC leaders are enjoying the luxury of flights and pushed these innocent people to the brink of life risk is condemnable," he wrote on X.

A Volvo bus got into an accident at Kodarma and many of our fellow citizens got injured. The way TMC leaders are enjoying the luxury of flights and pushed these innocent people to the brink of life risk, it is condemnable. Please feel free to contact me for any assistance needed. pic.twitter.com/pHgxXDyVX2

— Dr. Sukanta Majumdar (@DrSukantaBJP) October 1, 2023

Meanwhile, TMC MP Sougata Roy alleged that the ruling BJP at the Centre is trying to foil the TMC's protests by way of denial of train bookings and cancellations of flights.

"People of the country should see how the BJP is trying to thwart our programme," he told reporters.

The Eastern Railway has stated that it received a request from the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and cited the unavailability of train rakes as the reason for denying the special train.

A TMC leader said that the buses, which left Kolkata and other districts of West Bengal on Saturday night, are scheduled to reach Delhi by early Monday.

The TMC plans to hold a sit-in by its MPs and state ministers at Rajghat on October 2, and a rally of MGNREGA job card holders the next day.