E-Paper
Boy injured in Bengal post-election violence
Triggering another row, a leader of Trinamool in Bhangar area under Bengal’s Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency, urged party workers not to allow polling agents of opposition parties inside booths.
An election official went missing and a Class 7 student suffered a bullet injury on his left ankle in a suspected political clash on Friday, a day after the second phase of voting in the eastern state where the Centre has sent an additional 50 companies of paramilitary forces over concerns of poll-related violence. In Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency, which voted on Thursday, a bullet grazed Mohammed Abdul in a village in Chopra block, triggering a blame game between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“TMC supporters attacked our supporters and also vandalised their houses,” said Raju Singh Bista, the BJP candidate from Darjeeling. Hamidul Rahaman, the Trinamool legislator from Chopra, said, “The clash was between two factions of the BJP.” In Nadia district, a nodal officer incharge of electronic voting machines and voter-verified paper audit trail machines went missing on Thursday afternoon. The mobile phone of West Bengal Civil Service (WBCS) officer Arnab Roy was switched off.
Nadia district magistrate Sumit Gupta said the police were probing the disappearance. “It (the disappearance) is probably related to personal issues. Somebody else has been appointed in his place to take up his responsibilities,” said Ajay Nayak, special election observer for West Bengal. In Hooghly district, which borders Kolkata, the rented accommodation of BJP’s women’s wing chief Locket Chatterjee, an actor-turned-politician who is also the party’s candidate from the Hooghly Lok Sabha constituency, was vandalised on Friday morning.
“TMC goons vandalised my residence. I have told them clearly that no matter whatever they do, they cannot deter me from fighting their hooliganism,” Chattejee said. Trinamool MLA Asit Majumdar alleged that the incident was the outcome of an internal feud of the BJP.
Triggering another row, a leader of Trinamool in Bhangar area under Bengal’s Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency, urged party workers not to allow polling agents of opposition parties inside booths. “Allowing the opposition to paint wall graffitis or posters is out of the question. Don’t even allow polling agents of the BJP or the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to sit in the booths on polling day,” Modasser Hossain said at a meeting on Thursday. Special observer Nayak said on Friday as many as 90% of the booths in the third phase in Bengal on April 23 will be guarded by central forces. The coverage was stepped up from 50% in the first phase to 80% in the second.
