Dumka (Jharkhand): A war of words broke out on Friday when activists of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) resisted workers of West Bengal's Trinamool Congress government from painting the Massanjore dam's walls in shades of white and blue, a senior official said here.
BJYM Dumka district president Amit Rakshit said that TMC workers, on the behest of the neighbouring states's government, had started painting the walls of the dam in blue and white colours when local people objected to it.
"We went there and asked them to stop the work," Rakshit told PTI.
Activists of the BJYM and the BJP also registered their protest with an official of the Jharkhand Irrigation Department, who said that "a contractor from West Bengal was engaged to paint the dam", Rakshit claimed.
Executive Engineer of the Irrigation Department Naresh Prasad Mandal said that the matter has come to his notice, and he has initiated steps to stop painting on the walls of the interstate dam.
"Today, the contractor used primer on the painted walls to restore the original colour," Rakshit said.
The TMC, however, defended the action and claimed that it was well within the rights to use such colours.
"The West Bengal government built the dam and the state irrigation department maintains it. We have every right to paint the dam in the colours we wish to, nobody can stop us," West Bengal Irrigation Minister Somen Mahapatra asserted.
Mahapatra also said that the workers were not allowed to put up the 'Biswa Bangla' logo at the site on Friday.
"These are handiworks of BJP-hired goons. They wanted the dam to be painted in saffron colour. Is this the way the BJP is planning to saffronise the entire country? We have asked the district magistrate and superintendent of police in Dumka district to take necessary action," he said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has assured to raise the matter at an appropriate forum, he added.
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