A day after assuring “effective and corrective action” on violence ahead of the panchayat polls, West Bengal governor C V Ananda Bose on Friday visited violence affected Bhangore in South 24 Parganas district.
Bhangore witnessed violence on Thursday, with three feared dead, between supporters of rival political groups over nomination filing for the civic body polls.
Bose visited Bijoyganj market at Bhangore, which was the epicentre of the violence and spoke to the people and district police and administration officials, as reported by news agency PTI.
The Governor on Thursday said that effective and corrective action will be taken against those responsible for the violence in the state.
In a statement, the Governor said: “Shocked to hear that the death toll in pre-election in Bengal is increasing. It is revolting that the media is also under attack by the hooligans. Victory in Elections should depend on the count of votes, not the count of dead bodies.”
The Trinamool and Indian Secular Front (ISF), an ally of the Left and Congress in the state, have both claimed their workers died in the violence.
Blaming the ISF for the clashes, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that the violence was due to local issues.
“Our party has issued instructions that everyone should be allowed to file nominations. More than 1 lakh nominations have been filed, which is far more than any other state,” she told reporters.
Meanwhile, the Calcutta High Court has asked the State Election Commission (SEC) to deploy central armed forces across West Bengal within 48 hours for the panchayat polls scheduled for July 8.
Reacting to the Calcutta High Court order,
Trinamool Congress leader Madan Mitra claimed that while West Bengal is not getting “a single penny” for its development, thousands of crores will now be spent on deploying central armed forces in the panchayat polls.