New Delhi/Kolkata: Is the law catching up? Now, FIR against Mamata Banerjee in cooch Behar. The ongoing assembly elections in West Bengal definitely witness to some unprecedented happenings and high-voltage dramas. Now, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is at the receiving end.
An FIR has been lodged against Mamata at Mathabhanga police station in Cooch Behar, the north Bengal district which has experienced violence including the opening of fire by CISF personnel on poll duty. Five people – four Muslims were killed in the CISF fire. And one Rajbonhsgi BJP worker was also killed allegedly by Trinamool ‘goons’ on April 10 on the polling day in the constituency.
In the FIR filed by Siddique Mia Ali, a local BJP’s minority cell leader, it has been alleged that Trinamool Congress supremo had ‘instigated voters’ to gherao central forces and that, in turn, led to the incident of firing in Sitalkuchi. Siddique produced video footage and cited the TMC supremo’s comments during a rally in the Banerswar area. “The said villagers including women launched an attack upon the paramilitary forces with the intention of causing bodily injury, knowing it to be likely to cause the death of the deployed paramilitary forces,” he wrote in the FIR.
“Mamata Banerjee is solely responsible for the death of those four people. She is answerable,” the BJP leader has said. The Election Commission had suspended the voting exercise at the booth following the incident. EC also said, “The joint report of the two special observers has been received … wherein they interalia stated that recourse to open fire by the CISF personnel became absolutely necessary in order to save the lives of the voters lined up at the polling booth, those of other polling personnel and their own lives as the mob had attempted snatching their weapons.”
It is worth mentioning that even the poll panel had taken exception to Mamata’s appeal to ‘women voters’ to gherao central forces, and had even slapped a 24-hour ban on her campaigning. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had alleged that Mamata Banerjee’s had hatched a “master plan” to rig the polls on April 10.
“Friends, facing her own defeat, now Didi (Mamata) has a new war strategy. It is Didi’s conspiracy by which the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and OBC…nobody will be allowed to vote. It is her conspiracy that people from these groups are stopped from voting and her goons cast false votes. (It is) openly being said that Trinamool people will ‘gherao’ central forces and other supporters of Didi will enter (the booth) and cast false votes,” the Prime Minister had said in a poll rally at Kalyani on April 12.
He also said: “Rumours are that what happened in Cooch Behar was a part of Didi’s false-vote master plan”.
