KOLKATA: With five more persons succumbing to their injuries that they received during violence on Saturday, the total death toll in the rural polls in West Bengal has gone up to 17. The governor, C.V. Ananda Bose, who had visited a number of strife-hit areas near Kolkata, left for Delhi which is said to be his unscheduled visit to the national capital.
Asked whether he would submit a report to the Centre, Bose, after his visit on Saturday said, “I will do whatever a governor is expected.”
As the number of total death increased to 17, Bengal’s ruling party lost its 10 activists in the violence during Saturday’s electoral exercise to decide who will dominate Bengal’s rural landscape for the next five years. Two more Congress workers were also reported dead.
Among the five fresh victims of violence, three were identified as TMC workers, who were killed in Cooch Behar, North Dinajpur and Murshidabad districts and two as Congress supporters who were found dead in North Dinajpur.
Bose had visited a number of areas in Kolkata’s adjoining North 24 Parganas on Saturday from where he received information of violence. Reacting to the violence on Saturday he had said, “This is the most sacred day for democracy. An election must be through ballots and not bullets. It should cause concern to all of us.”
Referring to the absence of the Central Armed Paramilitary Force (CAPF), state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday alleged it was a conspiracy hatched by the TMC and the BJP. “The Centre delayed to send the full volume of central force, which were 837 companies, requisitioned by the State Election Commission (SEC) to secure advantage in favour of the TMC,” he alleged.
When oppositions alleged that the central force was not utilised properly by the state poll panel, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiva Sinha on Saturday said the poll body requisitioned 837 companies of the Central Armed Paramilitary Force (CAPF) but 649 companies were available on the day of the election. “Rests are on their way to the state,” he had said.
According to the SEC, the state recorded 81 per cent of polling on Saturday. “On Monday, re-poll will be held in a number of booths where elections could not be conducted for law and order issues,” said an official of the state poll panel.
The SEC received reports of post-poll violence and protests from many pockets across the state. At Harishchandrapur in Malda, TMC minister Tajmul Hossain’s vehicle was vandalised late on Saturday night and a police vehicle was also attacked.
Protests were staged by opposition parties at several places. Congress workers protested in Murshidabad’s Beldanga alleging the supporters of the ruling TMC indulged in intimidation and false voting with impunity during the polls.
In Birbhum, where BJP once made inroads, workers of the saffron camp took refuge in its party offices fearing attack by the TMC’s men. “We witnessed unprecedented violence unleashed by the TMC activists on Saturday. They threatened us with dire consequences. We took shelter in party offices to save our lives from the blood-thirsty cadres of the ruling party,” said a BJP worker in Suri.
