Abhishek Banerjee was roughed up in Sonarpur on Saturday while visiting families of post-poll violence victims, in an attack that turned a local outreach trip into a fresh political flashpoint. Police said stones, shoes and eggs were hurled at him by unidentified people who tried to rain blows and kicks on the Trinamool Congress MP while shouting “thief, thief.”

The incident matters because Banerjee said the assault was caught on camera and that he would take it to court, the high court and the governor. “They wanted to kill me,” he told reporters, adding that the whole episode had been recorded. The MP’s threat to move legal authorities came on the same day the attack happened, making Saturday the point when a visit for victims of violence became a fight over who was responsible for violence now.

According to the Trinamool Congress, Banerjee was in Sonarpur, in South 24 Parganas district, to meet families affected by alleged post-poll violence. That is the backdrop to the anger in the crowd and the speed with which the political blame game began. Saayoni Ghosh condemned the attack on X, calling it a shocking assault on democratic values and political dissent, and said it was pre-planned. She added that Bengal politics had hit a new low.

But Samik Bhattacharya offered a different reading. He said the incident could have been the outcome of the anger of locals who had been tortured over the years, and denied BJP involvement. “The BJP is not involved in such activities. What has happened is not expected in a democracy,” he said, while also saying police were not there. The clash over motive leaves the central question unresolved: whether Banerjee faced a spontaneous backlash or a coordinated attack.

The episode also lands after a separate controversy in which Ghosh drew attention to a Kolkata flat at 19B 7 Tanks Lane, Kolkata 30, where civic officials later found the apartment was owned by Abhishek Bandhopadhaya and his wife Sayani Ghosh, a similarity in names that had already fed speculation and a political smear row. For Banerjee, Saturday’s violence now shifts the story from accusation to action. He has said he will move to court, and the next step is whether the camera footage he referenced becomes the evidence that settles who the killers were, or whether the dispute only hardens further.