Panchayat polls: TMC, BJP trade charges over violence in WB

The Trinamool Congress today accused the BJP of giving false information about violence during the filing of nominations for next month's rural polls in West Bengal to foment trouble, while the saffron party alleged that the former was trying to "gag democracy" in the state.

Union minister and BJP MP from Asansol Babul Supriyo alleged that the nomination process for the panchayat polls in the state started on April 2 and hundreds of BJP workers have been attacked by the TMC since then.

He said that his party would sit on 'dharna' in Parliament tomorrow.

However, TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee, who led a 10-member party delegation to the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata to meet Governor K N Tripathi, said, "Give accurate information. Tell us how a TMC worker got injured in Bankura by the BJP and now he is battling death."

After the meeting with Tripathi, he said, "We told the governor that these parties (opposition) were giving him false information and resorting to falsehood by suppressing facts."

"We have registered our protest and the governor listened," Chatterjee said.

 

Leading the TMC delegation, he also met state election commissioner A K Singh and urged him to take action against those who indulged in vandalism.

The BJP, at its headquarters in Delhi, showed images and a video of the purported attacks carried out on its workers in West Bengal.

"The state's chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, has told her party colleagues that she wants her candidates to get elected on half the seats without any election. That's why the TMC and she are gagging democracy in the state," Supriyo told reporters at the BJP headquarters in Delhi.

Meanwhile, a West Bengal BJP leader moved the Supreme Court today, seeking the court's intervention to ensure that the BJP's nominees are allowed to file nominations, which closes on April 9.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud has promised to hear the matter tomorrow.

The petition also sought deployment of central forces for smooth conduct of the panchayat polls scheduled to be held in May.

During the day, violence was reported from Alipurduar district in which one policeman and several workers of both TMC and BJP were injured in a clash outside the BDO office at Babughat, the police said.

West Bengal Police's ADG (Law and Order) Anuj Sharma said that additional force were being sent to Bankura, Birbhum and South 24 Parganas districts in view of the violence reported from these areas.

He said that three persons have been arrested in connection with yesterday's violence in Raiganj of North Dinajpur district.

On the assault on former CPI(M) Central Committee member and former Lok Sabha MP Ram Chandra Dome in Birbhum this afternoon, Sharma said, "There was instigation behind the incident".

Dome was hit by a stone when he was at the BDO-I office in Nalhati of Birbhum District along with Left parties' nominees for the rural poll.

The ADGP, however, said the nomination filing was going on "smoothly" and there was no report of any trouble from anywhere of the state.

According to him, till yesterday, Trinamool Congress has filed 4035 nominations, while opposition parties have filed 4,812 nominations.

Trinamool secretary general and state education minister said in Kolkata, "They (BJP) should explain how they have filed papers in about 51 per cent seats already."

"They (opposition) are trying to instigate trouble and trying to hog limelight. They are making such charges without verifying facts," he said.

Yesterday, Chatterjee had alleged that it was the BJP which was creating trouble and then taking refuge in the Raj Bhavan.

"The way the Raj Bhavan is functioning unilaterally on one-sided information without taking into account the views of others, it seems as if it is working as the wing of a political party," he had said.

However, Governor Tripathi told PTI yesterday, "The governor is the guardian of the people of the state and he can take note of things happening in the state.