Assembly Election of Bankura district of West Bengal where a Jawan of Central Force is seen keeping vigilance while the voters are in a queue to cast their vote. Image Courtesy – http://thewire.in
The Congress and the CPM grumbled to the Election Commission (EC) against Trinamool Congress cadres, referring to occurrences of charged viciousness and frightening of voters. Nilotpal Basu of CPM secretariat member met the Chief Election Commissioner. However, the Congress sent a progression of letters to the Election Commission.
Mr. Basu declared in his memorandum that continuous frightening to voters, violence, impediments are being kept in front of voters to block them from going to polling booths. Polling agents of the opposition parties are being attacked by the ruling party’s workers. Even the Secretary of the state, Surya Kanta Mishra was being harassed in his Narayangarh constituency.
Mr. Basu also said that the central forces were being kept idle during the polling time and they were not seen marching the total area covering various polling booths. But the Election Commission of India assured that the central forces will be everywhere, especially in those areas where the situation has been tensed for quite a long time. This kind of negligence of the officials of the electoral machinery was completely unexpected. In the situation, central forces completely failed to build-up confidence among the voters, and they are unable to utilize their voting right in a free and fair manner.
The second phase elections were going at Jamuria, West Bengal, where 2 live bombs have been found. Also many districts are facing violence. Video Courtesy – Youtube.
There were many incidents took place like booth capturing, creating violence in ‘Keshpur’, ‘Chandrakona’, ‘Garbeta’, ‘Pingla’, ‘Ghatal’, ‘Kharagpur’, ‘Narayangarh’ etc. Report said that candidate of the Congress party was beaten by the Trinamool workers where they looted the votes.
In a press conference held at Kolkata, Biman Bose, the Left Front Chairman, alleged that the Election Commission could not perform their duty to maintain the role to stop the environment of terror created by the TMC. He also told that their polling agents were being physically attacked, kidnapped and drove away, and voters were frightened.
Surya Kanta Mishra told that they have no faith on police department, but they have some level of faith on Election Commission. So, they have notified the Election Commission all these things. Incidents happened in ‘Jamuria’, ‘Pandaveswar’ and ‘Raniganj’ of Burdwan district, ‘Patrasayer’ in Bankura district, and ‘Keshpur’, ‘Garbeta’ in west Midnapore district. Inspite of these tensions, people resisted and tried to franchise their voting rights.
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Dr. Manas Bhunia of Congress alleged that from the Sunday, Trinamool cadres have been deployed for action in areas to frighten voters and polling agents. According to Dr. Manas Bhunia, they are unable to get polling agents because widespread violence and frightening to voters were going on at ‘Sabang’.
The overall situation is not at all new as far as Election in West Bengal is concerned. People have already accustomed with this situation of ‘looting votes’, ‘creating violence’, ‘creating chappa vote’, ‘Man Marking’, ‘Manipulation of Voter Lists’, ‘Booth Jamming’ – these are all part of ‘Scientific Rigging’. People of West Bengal had been observing these since 34 years of Left Front tenure. Now, Trinamool Congress is ruling the State of West Bengal. Obviously they are also following the same old techniques which their tutor (the previous Left Front government) had taught them. So, one should not expect the correct form of democracy, including free and fair poll from West Bengal Election procedure.
