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‘West Bengal in anarchy’: Adhir Chowdhury seeks President's intervention
In a letter to President Droupadi Murmu, Chowdhury also referred to poll-related violence and alleged attacks on party workers during the general elections.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday wrote to President Droupadi Murmu, alleging that West Bengal is in an "anarchic condition" and sought her intervention in “restoring civility and law and order in public life” in INDIA bloc ally Trinamool Congress-ruled state, reported PTI.
Chowdhury, the president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, also referred to poll-related violence and alleged attacks on party workers during this year's general elections.
"I wish to seek your kind intervention in restoring civility and law and order in public life in West Bengal. For me, at a personal level, it is not only disturbing but also deeply anguishing to see the anarchic condition in the state owing to the ruthless approach of the ruling party (Trinamool Congress) on the workers, sympathisers, and supporters of the opposition," Chowdhury wrote to the president, according to PTI.
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He claimed that prior to the Lok Sabha elections this year, "strong-handed" and "terror-filled attacks" on workers and supporters of parties opposing the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC "were the order of the day" in the state.
“As a result, many innocent persons have lost their lives, and have been jailed or taken into custody,” he alleged.
"There are also several cases of people not affiliated to the ruling party and inclined favourably to the opposition parties in the state have lost their jobs or means of livelihood because of the strongarm tactics of ruling dispensation in the state," Chowdhury added.
In his letter, the Congress chief also referred to the 'Sandeshkali incident' and the “engineered” communal riots in Murshidabad district before the Lok Sabha elections. He alleged that these were done "in order to polarise the voters".
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"While the Opposition party members and workers of all hues suffered immensely before the Lok Sabha Polls due to the 'terror' unleashed by the ruling party in West Bengal, what is of immediate and very deep concern, and that requires immediate attention is the continued post-poll violence and intimidation of the Opposition workers by the ruling party in West Bengal," he wrote.
Chowdhury, a bitter critic of Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee, also referred to the killing of a party worker in Jalpaiguri last week and alleged that there is "absolutely no ‘space’ for the opposition in the state".
“In effect, in the present times, it is “definitely” a situation of undeclared emergency that is prevalent in the state, where exercising Fundamental Rights remains a fairy tale,” he claimed.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Chowdhury lost the Baharampur parliamentary constituency, which gave him five consecutive terms in the Lok Sabha since 1999. He was defeated by over 85,000 votes by former cricketer Yusuf Pathan, who was fielded by the state's ruling Trinamool Congress.
