Irate BJP workers ransack party office

GUWAHATI, April 8: Broken chairs, smashed photoframes, a twisted signboard, torn flags and festoons, shards of glass - they all lay scattered at the headquarters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at Rajgarh Road here this afternoon. No, it was not a typhoon that has visited here, but a depressing reminder of a sudden 'visit' by party workers, apparently unhappy with the party leadership's decision to seek an electoral understanding with the ruling Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which, till the other day, was the party's main foe along with the Congress. The workers, numbering about 150 and including a handful of women, stormed the party office around 1.50 this afternoon and destroyed almost anything that came within reach. A couple of policemen, posted there since the last few days, could only watch as the workers gave vent to their fury. Party office-bearers were quick to deny that the attackers were partymen. They claimed that they were 'outsiders,' who had come here without any apparent reason. Today's action follows the incident at the same spot yesterday, when irate members of the Lakhimpur unit of the party's youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuba Morcha (BJYM), destroyed party office property while protesting over the same issue. According to eyewitnesses, the irate workers went about destroying property even as they shouted slogans hailing State unit president Rajen Gohain and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and also denouncing State leader V Satish and Union Home Minister L K Advani. Some claimed they belonged to the party's West Guwahati unit. Nothing was spared. Outside, the party signboards lay dented and twisted. Inside were piles of broken glass, torn and mutilated pictures of senior and past party leaders and ideologies, broken book cases without their contents, smashed window panes and broken cut-outs of the 'lotus,' the party symbol. Fortunately, none was injured. Party leaders said later that the office of Manoj Phukan, the party's West Guwahati mandal president, at Bharalumukh was also ransacked some time later. A complaint has been lodged with the police regarding the incident.