A fact-finding committee constituting of BJP leaders, which looked into incidents of violence during the recently concluded West Bengal panchayat elections, has alleged “rampant abuse of state power” and use of “illegal means” to win the election by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government.
The committee constituted by BJP national president JP Nadda, had among its members: former Union ministers and MPs Ravi Shankar Prasad, Satya Pal Singh, BJP’s national vice-president Rekha Verma, MP and former DG of Uttar Pradesh Police Brij Lal, and MP Rajdeep Roy.
The committee suggested a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into all cases under the monitoring of the Calcutta High Court. All bomb blast cases need to be probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the report read.
It alleged that when the dates of the three-tier panchayat elections were announced, open threats and intimidations were thrown to threaten the prospective candidates of the BJP, and further alleged that TMC supporters had “forcibly stopped” non-TMC candidates, especially from the BJP, from filing nominations.
Those who voted for a BJP candidate were physically assaulted, their houses damaged, the report further alleged.
Hitting out at the State Election Commission, the report alleged, “There was no effective monitoring as whenever a tense situation erupted, BDO and officers-in-charge were either found missing or unresponsive in order to facilitate mayhem by the TMC candidates and their goons.”
“All BDOs during the election process come under the charge of the SEC. However, there was no transfer/punishment that was imposed on the erring officers,” it read.
“In the course of our visit, we repeatedly heard complaints that the list of sensitive booths was not made available to central paramilitary forces deployed as per the order of the Calcutta High Court in spite of demand and no state administration permitted their adequate and appropriate deployment,” the report read.
It claimed that more than 50 people lost their lives till date in the poll-related violence in West Bengal.
Later, Nadda, after receiving the report, said, “The state government’s arrogance and utter disrespect for democratic processes are dismaying. The BJP will continue to fight for the people’s voice in West Bengal in a democratic way.”
Speaking of the violence, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “What is this happening Mamata ji? This is condemnable,” he said, showing pictures of violence and vandalisation of properties of political targets, most of whom, were from deprived and backward communities.
“If the polls were held fairly, I have no hesitation in saying that the BJP would have swept the panchayat elections. The BJP still won 11,000 gram panchayat seats, while all other opposition parties like the Congress and the Left were confined to 4,000 seats,” Prasad added, as quoted by PTI.
The West Bengal Panchayat elections took place on July 8, where a total of 2.06 lakh candidates were in the fray for elections to 73,887 seats. The ruling TMC won on all 20 zilla parishads, 317 of the 341 panchayat samitis and 2,644 of the 3,317 gram panchayats.