Clashes at Amit Shah's Kolkata roadshow, police resort to lathicharge

Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], May 14 (ANI): Clashes broke out Tuesday at the mega roadshow of BJP President Amit Shah in Kolkata resulting in utter chaos after sticks were hurled at his convoy and police resorted to lathicharge to disperse the crowd.
Clashes reportedly broke out after some miscreants started throwing sticks at the convoy in which the BJP president Amit Shah was travelling in.
The incident took place on College Street here when allegedly some TMC supporters began sloganeering and the furious BJP supporters responded by pelting stones and sticks at the University gates, resulting in chaos and mayhem.
Visuals from the scene showed a fire outside the university gates.
Security forces later got down to control the situation as everything happened in a fraction of second near the Calcutta University here. A statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was also vandalised at Vidyasagar College in the clashes.
A short while after the incident Amit Shah took to Twitter to say "Time to pack up Mamata didi."
"I am sure this massive support for the BJP among people of Bengal must have shaken the anarchist Mamata government," Shah wrote on the microblogging site.
In another tweet, the BJP president thanked people of Bengal "Thank you Bengal. I am overwhelmed with the outpouring of your love and support during the road show in Kolkata" he wrote and tagged both the tweets with the hashtag BengalWithBJP.
Earlier in the day, BJP alleged that the Trinamool Congress workers had removed posters and flags of Amit Shah and PM Narendra Modi were removed in several areas in the Kolkata, just hours ahead of Shah's mega road show.
Senior party leader Kailash Vijayavargiya said , "Mamata ji's goons and police removed all the posters and flags. They fled as soon after we reached here."
Dismissing the allegation, TMC leader Derek O'Brien said the BJP was "desperate."
"Just figured why the BJP are getting more and more desperate in Bengal. Top exit pollsters confide in private, that BJP hurtling to below 30 in UP" the TMC leader posted on Twitter.
Meanwhile, it was a sea of saffron in Kolkata today when Shah atop a truck decked in marigold flowers and flanked BJP's Kolkata north and Kolkata south candidates Rahul Sinha and Chandra Kumar Bose .
BJP supporters chanted "Jai Shri Ram" as activists dressed up as Lord Ram, Sita and Hanuman walked along with 'gada' (mace), not often seen on the streets of the metropolis where a distinct Bengali culture exists. There were Sikh men dancing to Bhangra beats.
Many in the crowd carried BJP flags. Amit Shah's rally comes days before the seventh and the final phase of the Lok Sabha elections. Nine seats are all set to go for polls in West Bengal on May 19. The result will be announced on May 23. (ANI)