West Bengal panchayat election nomination process peaceful
Namkhana/Kolkata, June 16
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday asserted that the panchayat poll nomination process in the state is peaceful, even as she flayed the Opposition for making an issue out of “one or two stray” incidents.
Banerjee made the comments at a TMC programme here, shortly after Governor CV Ananda Bose minced no words in stating that political violence would not be tolerated, and “there will be action and no alibi for inaction”.
“There is no other state other than Bengal where the panchayat poll nomination process is so peaceful. The Opposition parties CPM, Congress, BJP and ISF are trying to blame us over one or two incidents during the nomination exercise,” she said, accusing the Opposition of trying to malign the state.
Banerjee also rejected claims that Opposition candidates were not allowed to file nominations, informing that over 1.5 lakh nomination papers have been filed by them for the July 8 rural polls.
The Chief Minister was addressing the concluding session of the party’s two-month-long mass outreach programme ‘Trinamool e Nabojowar’ (new wave in Trinamool).
Widespread violence over the filing of nominations has so far left five people dead and several injured in various parts of the state.
Earlier in the day, the Governor visited Bhangore in South 24 Parganas district, where supporters of two political parties clashed on Thursday, the concluding day of nomination filing for the panchayat election, leaving three persons dead.
“Some undesirable incidents have happened in some parts of Bengal. I have made my inferences about them. No violence will be tolerated and we will have to end it. There will be action and no alibi for inaction,” Bose told reporters.
Meanwhile, the Calcutta High Court directed that prospective candidates, who were allegedly prevented from filing nominations at Basirhat in North 24 Parganas district, be allowed to submit their papers for the panchayat elections by 4 pm on Friday.
The court effectively extended the nomination process for these candidates by a day after it ended on Thursday.
