Murder of Indian politician sets stage for election bloodshed

Thousands of protesters paraded through a West Bengal town on Sunday with the body of a politician whose killing appeared to open a campaign of violence before India’s general election.

Satyajit Biswas, a lawmaker from the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), was shot dead at point blank range at a religious ceremony on Saturday night.

His party blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, but its leaders denied involvement.

“We suspect a political link to the killing,” said West Bengal deputy police chief Anuj Sharma, who added that two people had been arrested but did not say which party they were from.

Followers marched with the 38-year-old legislator’s body from Nadia district, about 120km (75 miles) from Kolkata, to his village.

Nadia was a battleground between the TMC and BJP in civic polls last year. There were dozens of deaths during the campaign.

Modi must soon announce a national election expected to start in April and which will almost certainly see new bloodshed.

Biswas was “trying to prevent the BJP’s foray into the community”, said TMC general secretary Partha Chatterjee, who blamed the rival party for the “shocking killing”.

But BJP chief Dilip Ghosh blamed the murder on splits in the TMC.

“When there is a political killing, they accuse my party. Let there be a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry, everything will become clear,” he said.

West Bengal witnessed gruesome political murders in past elections with victims hacked to pieces and some burned alive along with entire slums.

Criminal networks and political groups are linked, according to Sabyasachi Basu Roy Chowdhury, vice-chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University.

“This has complicated the problem,” he said.

According to The Indian Express newspaper, in 2013 the Communist Party accused the TMC of killing 142 political opponents before the last national election.