Opposition alleges vote loot by TMC in panchayat polls

KOLKATA: Opposition parties have alleged that the MamataBanerjee-led state government has deliberately avoided deployment of central forces ahead of the panchayat polls so that her supporters can prevent candidates of rival parties to file their nomination papers. That explains why the ruling Trinamool Congress has already secured about 12% of the total seats for which elections will be held on July 2 and 9, parties including the CPI (M), Congress and BJP have said.


“In the absence of any central force, the ruling Trinamool Congress has started looting votes in West Bengal’s villages. Already 6,500 Trinamool Congress candidates have won elections unopposed,” Congress MLA and former president of the party’s state unit Manas Bhunia told ET.

Bhunia alleged that the state police had become a mute spectator to violence and attacks on the opposition parties by the ruling party’s hooligans. “This is an unprecedented situation and we have not seen such a frustrating scenario even during the Left Front rule. The CPI (M) used to loot votes in the same fashion, but Mamata Banerjee has crossed all records of the Marxists as far as looting of rural votes is concerned,” Bhunia said.

Trinamool Congress MP Mukul Roy refuted all such allegations, saying the opposition parties were out to divert public attention after their drubbing in the recent by-election for the Howrah Lok Sabha constituency.

“People of Bengal have rejected the CPI (M),” Roy said about the main opposition in the state, adding, “Since the opposition parties are not getting people’s support, they are making all sorts of allegations to divert the attention of the common people from the fact that they have become isolated from the people.”

Bhunia, however, pointed out that while the state election commission had demanded 30,000 jawans of the central forces from the day of filing nominations, it had got only 3,000 armed force jawans of the state police. CPI (M)’s central committee member Goutam Deb said, “By not deploying central forces from the first day of filing nomination papers for polls, Mamata Banerjee’s government has violated Calcutta High Court’s order and I think anybody can file a contempt of court case against the government.”

BJP state president Rahul Sinha has demanded postponement of panchayat elections for a month and suggested that the polls should be held later in seven phases. Sinha said though the government agreed to deploy central forces after the Calcutta High Court order, it never deployed these forces.

“We feel that both the state election commission and the state government have violated Calcutta High Court’s order and panchayat elections have now become a farce,” Sinha said.