Kolkata: On the eve of the crucial last phase of Lok Sabha election in West Bengal, opposition political parties alleged violence by the Trinamool Congress and accused the Election Commission of not acting over complaints, while TMC chief Mamata Banerjee claimed that opposition parties were indulging in false propaganda.
Congress candidate for Beharampore Lok Sabha seat Adhir Chowdhury, who is also the WBPCC president, termed EC observers as “toothless tigers” and said that his party's
confidence in them had been ‘demolished'.
“You are all toothless tigers. All our confidence has been demolished totally,” Chowdhury told an EC-appointed police observer at Rejinagar in Murshidabad district, when the official asked him to exercise restraint.
Trinamool Congress supporters allegedly beat up Congress workers with sticks and were forced to remove a blockade set up at Rejinagar by the latter, according to some reports.
Chowdhury, the Murshidabad strongman, told his party workers, “You can't expect me to take you in my arms and go around. If you can't resist on your own, then you don't need to be in Congress. You must resist and take up sticks and stock bricks on rooftops. Go to jail if you have to.”
Mamata Banerjee claimed that some parties were deliberately playing “dirty politics and trying to do the politics of riots” while the CPI(M) is doing “the politics of natak (drama)”.
“Some people have lost the elections even before polling. They are spreading false propaganda,” she said appealing to voters to vote peacefully and fearlessly. Brushing aside allegations of rigging in the last four phases, Banerjee asserted, “Trinamool doesn't have to resort to rigging to win polls.”
Without naming Saradha chit fund scam or any of the accused, she said, “No one takes more action than me. Even if the people are from my party, I take action whether it is my MP, MLA or councillor”.
