State BJP leaders and newly elected MPs jostled with police on Basanti Highway for nearly three hours on Sunday, insisting they be allowed to ferry the bodies of two slain party supporters from Sandeshkhali to Calcutta to be garlanded and cremated.

Eventually, the BJP dropped the plan after a mix of heated exchanges and calmer negotiation. The bodies were taken back to Nazat village in Sandeshkhali, North 24-Parganas, some 60km from Calcutta, to be cremated on Monday.

At least four people were feared killed on Saturday evening as Trinamul and BJP supporters allegedly clashed with guns in Sandeshkhali. Trinamul claims one of its supporters was slain and six remain untraceable, while the BJP claims four deaths and one disappearance among its ranks.

The BJP is threatening to make Sandeshkhali the pivot of a movement against the Mamata Banerjee government and have lined up multiple protest programmes, including a 12-hour bandh in Basirhat in North 24-Parganas and a “black day” in the entire state on Monday and a big rally in Calcutta on Wednesday.

Some political analysts were reminded of the sudden worsening of law and order in Bengal after the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, in which Trinamul breached the Left citadel and bagged 19 of the 42 seats, one more than the BJP haul this time.

“The 2009 results proved that the Left was losing its grip. It was followed by a worsening of law and order. Something similar is happening now,” political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty said.

He said Bengal had a history of non-official actors from the ruling party playing a key role in maintaining law and order, which caused the civil and police administration to become dependent on their political masters to tackle any difficult situation.

“So, when ruling party leaders become weak in their fiefs, which has happened in places like Sandeshkhali, the police fail to handle escalations that go beyond a point,” he said.

The site of clashes on Saturday evening is just a few kilometres from the Bangladesh border.

Logs placed by BJP supporters who threatened to hold a funeral on Basanti Highway. Picture courtesy: ABP Ananda

Senior BJP leaders visited Basirhat District Hospital to receive the bodies of party supporters, looking to bring them to Calcutta. The team included five MPs — Dilip Ghosh, Locket Chatterjee, Shantanu Thakur, Jagannath Sarkar and Arjun Singh — and senior state leaders Rahul Sinha and Sayantan Basu.

“Such attacks on the Opposition didn’t take place even during Left rule. The Trinamul goons were on a killing spree and the police did nothing to protect our supporters. But the police prevented us from bringing the bodies to Calcutta,” Locket Chatterjee said while returning to the city late on Sunday evening.

Basanti Highway witnessed high-voltage drama when the police stopped the BJP cavalcade, including the hearses carrying the bodies of Sukanta Mandal and Pradip Mandal, at Malancha around 5.15pm.

“The bodies of two other BJP workers are still at the morgue; they were not handed over to us,” said Basu, who was part of the convoy.

After a brief standoff, the BJP supporters removed the police barricades and the motorcade resumed its journey towards the city. At Minakhan, around 5km from the first barricade, another police team blocked the road with vans, refusing the convoy further passage.

As district police bosses argued with the BJP leaders, local party supporters threatened to cremate the two bodies right on the highway, assembled logs of wood and began building funeral pyres.

After some time, though, Sinha announced the party would accept the police advice, especially keeping in mind the sentiments of the families of the dead who would want a proper and solemn funeral.

“But our movement will continue against the Mamata Banerjee government and her subservient and incompetent police force,” Sinha said.

Trinamul described the violence as a sign of the BJP's “desperation” to grab power in Bengal.

“The BJP is in a hurry to grab power in Bengal through undemocratic means. The violence is a fallout,” said senior Trinamul politician Tapas Roy, who visited Sandeshkhali with district unit chief Jyotipriya Mullick and MLAs Sujit Bose and Nirmal Ghosh to stand by the family of slain party activist Kayum Mollah.