Campaigns cur bed after fierce Bengal showdown
EC stops campaigning a day sooner; Mamata alleges order biased
NEWDELHI/KOLKATA: In an unprecedented move, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday cut short the poll campaign in West Bengal by 19 hours after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) accused each other of orchestrating the violence at a Kolkata roadshow by BJP president Amit Shah the previous evening in the endgame of a bitterly fought general election.
ECI acted in the aftermath of the violence in which a statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, an icon of the Bengali renaissance, was damaged by vandals who stormed the 147-year-old institution established by Vidyasagar, also a social reformer.
Campaigning for the nine Lok Sabha seats that will go to polls in West Bengal on May 19, the seventh and final phase of the 17th general elections, will end at 10 pm on Thursday, the poll watchdog said, instead of 5 pm on Friday at which it will end in 50 other seats that will vote the same day.
“No election campaigning to be held in nine parliamentary constituencies of West Bengal, namely Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, South and North Kolkata, from 10pm tomorrow [Thursday] till the conclusion of polls,” deputy EC Chandra Bhushan Kumar told reporters.
It is the first time that ECI has curtailed the campaign duration in a state, invoking Article 324 of the Constitution. Also on Wednesday night, ECI ordered the removal of the principal secretary (home), Atri Bhattacharya, and additional director general, Criminal Investigation Department, Rajeev Kumar, from their postings in West Bengal for interfering in the process of conducting elections.
The announcement climaxed a day on which Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a harshly bitter attack against TMC chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banergee on her own turf as the TMC and his BJP accused each other of orchestrating the violence in Kolkata on Tuesday.
Modi, 68, said Banerjee was destroying the “bhadralok,” or genteel and ethos that West Bengal had come to be represent, in an election rally at Taki on the Indo-Bangla border in North 24 Parganas district. He said Banerjee, 64, had been frightened by the rise of the BJP in West Bengal and accused her of being despotic.
“Mamata Banerjee is high on power and wants to strangle democracy. Mamata Didi had declared publicly two days ago that she will avenge every inch of space that she loses to the BJP. She fulfilled her agenda within 24 hours,” he said.
Modi said the entire nation had watched on television the previous evening how TMC thugs had attacked BJP president Amit Shah’s Kolkata roadshow and was anxiously awaiting the outcome of the poll results . Modi also specifically targeted Banerjee over the chit-fund scam in which tens of thousands of small investors lost their life savings and the Saradha group collapsed in 2013.
The Election Commission on Wednesday removed West Bengal home secretary Atri Bhattacharya for his alleged “interference in the election process” a day after workers of the ruling Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party clashed in Kolkata, turning the city’s College Street area into a virtual battleground.
The poll body also relieved additional director general, crime investigation department Rajiv Kumar, from his post.
The EC also ordered end to poll campaign from 10 pm on Thursday in the state’s remaining 9 Lok Sabha constituencies which go to polls on May 19. Kumar, who is under the scanner of the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Saradha chit fund case, was earlier removed as Kolkata police commissioner by the EC. He will now report to ministry of home affairs.
Deputy election commissioner, Sudeep Jain, said chief secretary Malay De will handle Bhattacharya’s responsibilities, and director general of police will look after the work of Kumar. On Monday, Bhattacharya wrote to state chief electoral officer, protesting the central forces opening fire in five areas [Gopiballavpur, Bishnupur, Moyna, Sabong and Bhagawanpur], baton charging and misbehaviour with voters without “apparent jurisdiction”.