Kolkata: West Bengal’s opposition parties yesterday attacked the Election Commission and the state’s special observer Sudhir Kumar Rakesh for failing to hold free and fair Lok Sabha election in the state and for turning down the demand for repoll in most booths.
Accusing the ruling Trinamool Congress of indulging in “massive rigging and booth capturing”, the main opposition Left Front, headed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), had sought repoll in about 3,200 polling booths, a demand supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress.
However, the Election Commission ordered repoll in only 20 booths covering all the five phases in the state.
The Trinamool dubbed the repoll demand “laughable”.
Asked about the role of the special observer, CPI-M politburo member Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said: “The observers have done a serious criminal offence”. “They left helpless people before violent attacks of the ruling party,” he said.
In a letter to Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath, Left Front chairman Biman Bose claimed that in the fifth and last phase involving 17 constituencies in the state, a sizeable number of booths were “captured” by Trinamool workers “who established total control on the polling process”.
The letter alleged that the Trinamool leaders “muzzled officials and coerced voters to vote against their wishes for benefit of Trinamool candidates. Of the 31,392 booths involved in the last phase, nearly 1,500 booths were affected”.
“It was a one-sided match, with both the state administration and the EC watching from the sidelines instead of stepping in for the sake of a free and fair election,” the letter said.
IANS
