Neither BJP nor TMC endorses the slogan, but the incidents have added to the acrimony.
Three BJP supporters who shouted the infamous "Goli Maro" slogan at a rally in West Bengal's Hooghly district on Wednesday were arrested in the dead of night for allegedly attempting to incite violence.
Their arrests have raised questions about why Trinamool supporters who shouted a tweaked version of the same slogan on the streets of Kolkata on Tuesday were not arrested.
The issue even reached the Election Commission of India, with political parties raising it before the full bench-led by CEC Sunil Arora that is currently in Kolkata.
"We can have different points of view but Bengal's culture, propriety and decency cannot be breached. We have never allowed this. They are using language that amounts to terrorism through words. They are saying 'Goli Maro'. They are saying 'we will bury you'. They are saying 'we will send you to the crematorium'. This does not improve the health of democracy. We have told the Election Commission to intervene in this matter. They have assured us that they will look into it," Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee said.
BJP's Dilip Ghosh said, "I told the Election Commission to see the police partiality. The same slogan in Kolkata by TMC and there is no action but when it provokes reaction in Chandannagar, the youth who shouted it is picked up by police in the dead of night. Because of this, people are losing faith in the police and doubt they can vote fairly. The TMC rally slogans were shouted in front of your camera. We did not start it. Such provocative slogans should not but will cause reaction. The party in power has a bigger responsibility in controlling such things."
A local BJP leader at Chandannagar, Suresh Shaw, and two others were picked up late last night by the local police on the basis of a suo Moto case after they shouted the slogan as they marched down the streets in the wake of a roadshow by BJP leader suvendu Adhikari and Hooghly MP locket Chatterjee.
The Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy said the arrests were "a completely police matter and the party had no hand in it". He suggested the police in Kolkata probably did not find any real threat in the slogan shouting at the Trinamool rally.