While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) praised the man’s “spirit of defiance”, Trinamool Congress (TMC) questioned his presence at the students’ protest.
In the viral video, the man can be seen signalling the Kolkata Police to wear bangles.
The ‘Nabanna Abhiyan‘ protest drew a large crowd at College Square in Kolkata. However, tensions escalated as the police resorted to lathi-charge, water cannons, and tear gas to disperse the protesters, claiming that they had broken barricades and pelted stones.
BJP leaders shared the viral video of the elderly man, as they hailed his actions against what they described as an oppressive regime.
While sharing the video on his X (formerly Twitter) account, BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya called it as “the ultimate symbol of defiance”. “The man, waving a national flag, on the iconic Howrah bridge, amidst blazing water cannon, is the ultimate symbol of defiance against an oppressive Mamata Banerjee regime,” Malviya wrote.
BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla posted snapshots of the viral video on his X handle and compared it Tiananmen Square incident in China. “Mamata’s Tiananmen Square,” he said in his post.
BJP general secretary of West Bengal Locket Chatterjee also shared the video. “End anarchy, end fascism. We all demand the end of TMC’s tyranny. With the Tiranga in hand amid blasting water cannons, this man is defining his steadfast determination against the oppression of @MamataOfficial,” he said while posting the video on his X handle.
Meanwhile, TMC leaders questioned the elderly man’s presence in the protest and said he was among the “hooligans of BJP”.
Posting the video of the elderly man, TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghosh sarcastically asked “Is that a student of the ‘WB Chatra Samaj’? #justasking”.
TMC spokesperson Riju Datta also shared the video, saying, “These are not students. These are Hooligans of BJP.” Datta said, “Let me be very clear… These are NOT Students… These are Hooligans of BJP… They wanted “Dead Bodies”, they wanted to create a Anarchy like Bangladesh in Bengal. They pelted stones at police, broke barricades, destroyed police vehicles, set fire to motorcycles, multiple police badly injured, IC Chanditala head split wide open… This will NOT BE TOLERATED!”