Mamata Banerjee On West Bengal Panchayat Poll Violence

Kolkata

Mamata Banerjee On West Bengal Panchayat Poll Violence said ‘I’m Giving Free Hand To Police To Act

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she is saddened at the loss of lives in ‘sporadic’ incidents of violence during rural polls. Banerjee also asserted that her government has given a free hand to the police to take action against those behind the violence.

“I am saddened at the loss of lives in sporadic incidents of violence during panchayat elections… The polls were held in 71,000 booths, but incidents of violence took place in not more than 60 booths,” she said.

The chief minister claimed that 19 people, mostly from her TMC, died IN POLL VIOLENCE

Police sources, however, have put the number of fatalities at 37.

“I am giving police a free hand to act against those behind the violence,” she told reporters at the state secretariat ‘Nabanna’.

Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad criticized West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for letting loose a reign of terror during the rural polls and wondered why the central leadership of the Congress and the Left are silent on it.

A four-member BJP fact-finding team to West Bengal, led by the former Union minister, said the state unit’s demand for implementing Article 355 is “justifiable”.

The BJP leader told reporters said, “Mamata Banerjee politics is now full of atrocities, which was not evident even during the Left rule.”

“Why are so many people being killed? Why so much violence across the state? Is this not the responsibility of the state administration to ensure free and fair polls? This was once the scenario of Bihar, but the state, too, has moved ahead. Mamata Banerjee has shamed democracy in Bengal,” he said.