Opposition parties in West Bengal, including the Congress, left and the BJP have raised fingers at the Election Commission for its “failure to utilise central forces” in the third round of elections that saw massive rigging and booth capturing in the nine constituencies on Wednesday.
Demanding “effective deployment” of central forces in the remaining two rounds, sources in the Pradesh Congress on Thursday questioned the “motive behind a section of the Election Commission (EC) in underutilising the forces.”
Curiously, EC Special Observer Sudhir Kumar Rakesh on Thursday insisted that Wednesday’s polls were “absolutely peaceful, free and fair” (he had earlier said they were free and fair but wondered whether they were peaceful) ignoring video footages showing blood being spilled and votes being literally looted by a rampaging Trinamool.
“let the EC get Wednesday’s election probed by an independent agency and let it talk to voters. Things will become clear to the poll panel. Wednesday’s elections were entirely rigged. Rakesh is not telling the truth in order to mask his failure,” State BJP president Rahul Sinha said.
PCC leader and party candidate from Srirampur Abdul Mannan said: “The commission is not doing the needful. It should play a more pro-active role in order to instill confidence about its neutrality among the electorate.”His party colleague Pradip Bhattacharya said the PCC had appealed to the EC to “adequately cover vulnerable areas so that the polls do not become a farce as it happened on Wednesday.”
The PCC leaders, however, would not comment on the alleged compromise between the Trinamool Congress and the Congress in order to keep Narendra Modi out of power. “The Congress suffered the most in the third round so we are more vociferous than others in demanding a free and fair election.” CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty said: “The way the central forces were made to stand by, the way they simply vanished from the scene and the way no route march was conducted in sensitive areas, it seems the EC was not willing to discharge its duty properly.”
He added that his party had given a map of the volatile South 24 Parganas district which had four constituencies to Rakesh and marked sensitive areas on it.“It is curious to notice that the central forces acted tough in the areas where the Congress was in a position to win but slackened their grip in areas where the Congress has literally no presence and the Trinamool is stronger,” said former CPI(M) MP Nandy adding such things do not augur well for the democratic fabric of the State where people would start resisting in their own manner if they were not given protection by the EC.
Meanwhile, post-poll violence had ensued in various parts of the State including Birbhum, Howrah and elsewhere police said.Sources said there were reports of bombing and looting by alleged Trinamool men at Domjur, Amta and other places in Howrah. Similar reports had filtered in from Mangalkot, Raina and Ketugram in Burdwan and Birbhum.