Varanasi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised his nationalist party’s courage on Monday amid political clashes and killings after his latest landslide election triumph.
Three workers from Modi’s BJP have been killed and there have been pitched battles between BJP activists and a rival regional party in West Bengal state since Modi secured a new five-year term last week.
Thousands of supporters lined the streets of his political bastion of Varanasi, waving flags, chanting his name and throwing flower petals at his cavalcade, despite 40 degree Celsius heat.
“Why are our workers being killed and attacked in Kashmir, Kerala or Bengal,” Modi said.
“It is shameful and anti-democratic,” he added.
A close aide of former BJP minister Smriti Irani was shot dead by gunmen on a motorbike in the Amethi district of Uttar Pradesh state on Saturday night.
Irani won the Amethi seat from opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Another BJP worker was shot dead in West Bengal on Sunday night, triggering fresh clashes with supporters of the rival Trinamool Congress party, officials said. The two sides hurled home-made bombs at each other and about a dozen people were injured. — AFP
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