Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday threatened to move the Supreme Court after the elections to expose the deep-rooted conspiracy between the Election Commission officials and BJP to “unlawfully” defeat Trinamool Congress in the ongoing Assembly elections.
Referring to the context of some WhatsApp chats among Deputy Election Commissioner Sudip Jain, Police Observer Vivek Dubey and some DM and SPs where they reportedly spoke about arresting “trouble mongers” from the Trinamool Congress, Mamata said she would take up the matter in the Supreme Court.
She said “these officials are giving orders to detain TMC workers so that they cannot take part in voting process … this cannot be tolerated,” Mamata told party men at Bolpur in Birbhum district adding “after the elections we will move the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court and raise these issues… enough is enough.”
Saying that the TMC would continue to act fearlessly she said her party had no problems with the EC working to conduct free and fair elections “but what is it like when you work for a particular party and against the other party … this biased behaviour is not acceptable … there is a conspiracy to defeat TMC.”
Accusing the EC for ordering the police officers to round up the “trouble mongers in the TMC and keep them in custody till 4 pm,” Banerjee said that she had received the contents of the WhatsApp from some BJP workers who did not subscribe to that prejudiced approach.
Alleging that every time there was an election EC ordered Birbhum TMC chief — a party strongman — Anubrata Mandal to be detained, Banerjee said “every time they put Anubrata under house arrest during the elections which is not fair … if they do it this time the people give a reply in the EVM machine.”
Saying that “despite playing this dirty game the BJP will not be able to win more than 70 seats in Bengal,” Banerjee said accused even the State police officers of getting carried away by the BJP propaganda.
“The police too are acting as if the BJP is the ruling party in Bengal … I will not tell them anything now … they are being guided by the Commission. But the EC is here for a few more days, after that they will go away and then I will talk to the police officers,” Banerjee who had earlier alleged that along with the central forces even the State police officials were also playing a partisan role.
Holding the Commission responsible for the rising number of corona cases in Bengal the Chief Minister said that she had repeatedly spoken against lengthy 8-phase elections that the EC would not listen to.
“I had repeatedly told that the polls should be held in one or two phases during the pandemic period but they would not listen to this … they brought more than 2 lakh central forces without testing whether they had already contacted the disease and now the situation in Bengal is taking alarming proportions … who is responsible for this situation,” Banerjee said.
Reacting to Banerjee’s statements Bengal BJP vice president Jay Prakash Majumdar said “her threat to move the Supreme Court only shows that she has conceded her defeat in the people’s court … this is a sign of surrender … now after the defeat she is trying to find an escape route and so she is talking about going to Supreme Court.”