Bengal Opposition parties including left, Congress and the BJP on Wednesday petitioned the Election Commission en masse requesting heavy deployment of Central forces for the coming lok Sabha elections.
Demanding a “heavily sanitised five-phase” polls, “so that the people can exercise their franchise peacefully without fear”, the political parties requested Deputy Election Commissioner Vinod Zutshi to ensure that the Central forces reached the State on the day of notification of elections. “Democracy is jeopardised on account of the rampant violence in the panchayat and civic polls and even the college elections and only the Central forces can ensure free and fair polls,” Manas Bhunia, Congress leader and former PCC president said emerging from the meeting.
The BJP on his part demanded five-phase elections and requested Zutshi to ensure that the voters in remotest areas could be ferried to the polling booths by the Central forces “as the situation is highly charged and there is a sense of terror prevailing in large parts of the State.” “We have requested the Commission to let the Observers take charge of the affairs from the day of the filing of nomination papers” reminding how the Opposition parties had failed to field candidates in more than 7,000 seats in the panchayat elections.
The “fear of violence is such and the ruling party is so unsure about its own goons that the Government had to postpone the college elections by several months” CPI(M) leader Robin Deb who met Zuthsi in an all-party meeting said. The BJP which was represented by former Union Minister Tapan Sikdar placed a list of demands requesting the Commission to ensure that confidence was instilled among the voters so that could take part in the polling.
The voters were being terrorised by the Trinamool goons and so the Commission should ensure that root marches were conducted in the sensitive areas “which will help the voters to gain back their confidence.” He referred to some latest speeches made by senior Trinamool leaders inciting the party men to bomb police vehicles and chop off the hands of opposition workers.
The Congress on the other hand appealed to the Commission to gather reports from the State Election Commissioner Meera Pandey who had tried to conduct free and fair panchayat polls but failed. “We drew the attention of the Commission as to how a long legal battle was fought on the question of deploying central forces during the rural elections,” the Congress said.
Meanwhile a Congress MlA from Birbhum on Wednesday filed an FIR against district Trinamool president Anubrata Mandal complaining how he had “threatened me with murder.”