TMC leaders meet EC as Mamata discharged
KOLKATA/NEW DELHI: A TMC delegation met Election Commission of India (EC) officials on Friday and demanded a highlevel probe into an alleged attack on West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram claiming it was not an “unfortunate incident” but a conspiracy, even as the poll body sent two observers to the site of Wednesday’s attack in East Midnapore district.
The two observers visiting the spot at Birulia Bazar in Nandigram, where Banerjee alleged that she was attacked by fourfive men and sustained injuries in her left ankle, are: Ajay V Nayak, the special observer to West Bengal, and Vivek Dubey, a police observer, said an EC official.
“The EC has sought a report from the observers on what happened at Birulia Bazar on the evening of March 10. The report is likely to be sent by Friday evening,” said the poll panel official. The state’s chief secretary has also been asked to send a report on the incident.
Banerjee, meanwhile, was discharged from hospital following improvement in condition. Banerjee, seated on a wheelchair with her left foot plastered, greeted several party activists gathered outside the hospital in Kolkata. “Her condition has improved a lot and she repeatedly insisted to be discharged from the hospital,” doctors treating her said.
In Delhi, a six-member delegation of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) met the full EC team, including chief election commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora, for over an hour and submitted a memorandum to it, highlighting how Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in West Bengal had threatened the chief minister through tweets and other remarks.
“Injuries to Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram were not a result of an unfortunate incident but that of a conspiracy. The events leading up to the attempt on her life leave no doubt that the attack was part of a deep-rooted conspiracy,” TMC MP Saugata Roy told reporters after meeting the EC.
In the memorandum, the TMC has made allegations against Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP candidate from Nandigram in the upcoming state Assembly polls. “When an attempt was made on the life of Ms Banerjee, in which she was grievously hurt, to cover up the attack, eyewitnesses were planted, illustratively, eye-witnesses Chittaranjan Das and Debabrata Das, who testified that Ms Banerjee’s car was hit against an iron pillar, are associates of Suvendu Adhikari, BJP candidate from Nandigram,” the memorandum says.
The TMC delegation also handed over documents containing translated tweets of BJP leaders as well as photographs of Banerjee’s car. “The chairperson’s car does not show even a scratch -- clearly demolishing the lie that the vehicle hit an iron pillar on the road.”
After a delegation of TMC leaders met EC officials in Bengal, the poll body on Thursday sent a strongly-worded letter to the party on its memorandum over injuries to Banerjee during the campaign, saying it looks “undignified to even respond” to allegations that the poll panel is doing things in the state at the behest of a “particular party”. The TMC’s letter regarding the “attack” on Banerjee was full of “insinuations and averments that question the very basis of the creation and functioning of the Election Commission”, it said.
The eight-phase elections for 294 seats of the West Bengal assembly are scheduled to be held between March 27 and April 29. Counting of votes will be held on May 2.
Hours after TMC leaders met EC officials, a BJP delegation comprising Union minister Piyush Goyal and party general secretary Bhupender Yadav, too, met poll body officials and demanded an independent inquiry into the incident in which TMC supremo got injured.
Besides Goyal and Yadav, party leaders Sambit Patra, Anirban Ganguly and Swapan Dasgupta were also in the BJP delegation.
Addressing reporters after the meeting, Yadav said the BJP has demanded an independent inquiry into the incident in Nandigram on March 10 when Banerjee got injured. “The party
also requested the election commission to make public the video of Banerjee’s rally in which she got injured,” he said.
Earlier in the day, BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya said even senior TMC leaders are “distorting the state administration’s version” of the incident to give credence to the conspiracy angle for political gains. “However hard the TMC leaders may try to float conspiracy theories, they are only dishing out false information on the Nandigram incident. They are trying to create a political crisis. Their insinuations of EC are akin to showing disrespect to the Constitution,” Bhattacharya said.
The Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), too, have refused to accept the TMC’s version.
A senior election official told news agency PTI that the EC may punish police personnel in charge of the chief minister’s security for a lapse leading to her injury during campaigning. The EC is waiting for reports from the state government and the two observers appointed for the upcoming assembly elections before deciding on the punishment, he said.
“There was definitely a lapse on the part of the police personnel who were in charge of the chief minister’s security. Anyone shouldn’t penetrate the security circle around the CM. We are waiting for reports from the state government and the observers before taking a decision,” the EC official said.
In video grabs accessed by the poll body, it was found that several people got very close to the CM’s vehicle during her campaigning in Birulia Bazar on Wednesday, he said. “This should not have happened… It was a serious security breach,” he said.
The election official, however, said that the video footages were “not very clear to give a proper picture whether Banerjee was attacked as alleged by her”. “We are waiting for the reports from the state government and the two observers. We cannot disclose our opinion in this context,” he said.