HC expresses anguish over CM sharing dais with a leader accused in a murder case
Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers on Thursday thrashed Election Commission (EC) officials for videotaping a bike rally by party workers at Manikchak in Malda district on Thursday.
The EC has ordered the State administration to initiate stern action against the offenders. Under the Model Code of Conduct, bike rallies are prohibited during election campaign.
The district election office is examining the video footage and subsequently an official compliant will be filed, sources said. EC director Dhirendra Ojha said in New Delhi that the poll body had taken a serious note of the incident and asked the district administration to submit a report by Thursday evening. The EC has also asked the District Magistrate to submit a detailed account of the incident and the action-taken-report to the Commission.
Eyewitnesses claimed that a four-member team of EC was video recording the TMC rally as it approached Khayertala of Manikchak when some people from the crowd objected and beat two election officials.
The sources said that a Block Development Officer will probe the incident.The police, when contacted, said it was yet to get any report of the incident.
In a recent meeting attended by Deputy EC Vinod Zutshi, poll officials from West Bengal had expressed fear of violence targeting them during the elections. The EC had taken a serious note of their complaints and the issue had also come up during a meeting of Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath and other top EC officials with the State authorities in Kolkata last week, according to the sources.
Meanwhile, the Calcutta High Court on Thursday expressed anguish over West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sharing dais with a TMC leader accused in a murder case and directed the DGP to appear before it to clarify why action was not taken against him so far.
Showing photos of Banerjee sharing dais with Birbhum TMC district president Anubrata Mondal published in newspapers, Justice Dipankar Dutta asked what message the CM was giving.
Questioning whether Mondal enjoyed the patronage of the Chief Minister, Justice Dutta observed if that was so, then how the DGP would show the courage to arrest him. Asking whether the DGP was trying to test the court’s patience, a visibly annoyed Justice Dutta said “enough is enough”.
Justice Dutta had on April 7 asked the DGP to act on alleged inflammatory statements made by Mondal in connection with the murder of Sagar Dutta, an independent Panchayat member at Parui in July 2013.