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‘Will break booth machine’: BJP leader warns TMC against post-poll violence in Bengal civic elections
As many as 108 civic bodies of West Bengal will go into polls on February 27. Elections to four other municipalities in Bidhannagar, Siliguri, Chandannagar and Asansol already took place on February 12, which the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress swept.
West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) vice president Arjun Singh on Sunday said that he will “break every booth machine” in the state if post-poll tensions occur again.
“Eent ka jawab, patthar se denge (we will use stones against bricks)," he was heard as saying in a video shared online by news agency ANI.
He added that the presiding officer must “pray for his job”, if meddling takes place at even one location.
Singh switched to the BJP from the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 2019.
As many as 108 civic bodies of West Bengal will go into polls on February 27. Elections to four other municipalities in Bidhannagar, Siliguri, Chandannagar and Asansol already took place on February 12, which the TMC swept.
Notably, it was the ruling dispensation's first electoral triumph in the Siliguri Municipal Corporation in north Bengal. While the TMC already had Bidhannagar, Chandannagar and Asansol in their basket, the party wrested control over Siliguri that was being ruled by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front.
Following the win, Mamata said she is “thankful to the people” of Siliguri and called the polls “peaceful”. “With this victory, we have to be more humble, more humane, work more and stand beside the people in times of need,” she added.
The BJP has alleged that polling in Bidhannagar and Asansol was not fair and free, and votes were looted. The party sent a letter to the State Election Commission (SEC), seeking the polls in the two civic bodies to be declared null and void.
However, the SEC said that voting was largely peaceful in all the four civic bodies with no reports of any significant untoward incident.
Meanwhile, BJP leader and Suvendu Adhikari has warned the TMC-led state government of a 72-hour strike if voting is blocked on the polling day. While campaigning in the forthcoming Contai Municipality elections in his home turf of East Medinipur, he told his former party that everything will be blocked after 6pm in Nimtala, Maniktala and other areas - located in Kolkata, if voting is interrupted, according to ANI.
