West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose
West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose arrived in the national capital on July 9 night.
Governor CV Ananda Bose is likely to call on Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the widespread violence during the panchayat polls in West Bengal. To a question on the purpose of his visit to New Delhi, CV Ananda Bose told reporters, “I came here for a simple purpose. As a student, I heard about Tamasoma Jyotir Gamaya, somebody told me it was about light at the end of the tunnel. As a humble student, I wanted to ask my professors what it meant.”
Multiple incidents of violence were reported on the polling day casting a long shadow on the conduct of the panchayat polls across the State.
Meanwhile, West Bengal State Election Commission on July 9 said that police have confirmed ten deaths in poll-related violence across the State.
Earlier, on July 9, the State Election Commission (SEC) announced re-polling in 697 booths spread across five districts, on July 10.
Repolling will be held in the districts of Purulia, Birbhum, Jalpaiguri, Nadia and South 24 Parganas on July 10, the state poll panel informed.
Earlier, West Bengal BJP State general secretary Jagannath Chattopadhyay wrote to the State Election Commission to declare the July 8 polling as void and hold fresh panchayat polls.
“You will recollect yesterday the BJP WB delegation called on you and asked you to review CCTV/video footage to establish booths which have to be re-polled due to booth, looting, polling officers seen participating/helping in rigging/where BJP candidates agents were forced to leave or removed from polling stations,” the letter read.
The three-tier panchayat elections in 20 of 30 districts were marked by widespread violence, looting of ballots papers and rigging.
There were reports of booth capturing, damaging of ballot boxes and assault of presiding officers from several districts such as Murshidabad, Cooch Behar, Malda, South 24 Parganas, North Dinajpur and Nadia.
In Arambagh, a town in Hoogly City of the state, miscreants, including women and children, forcefully barged into the polling booth and tools away a number of ballot boxes.
A similar attempt of capturing the booth was made in Baniakhari village, located in the Matigara subdivision of the Darjiling district. Here a booth (number–59) was captured by miscreants.
Fearing attacks by miscreants, the poll workers in the Mayureshwar, Birbhum, left the booth. The workers were scared of anything serious happening in the area.
In another attack at a polling booth in Baravita Primary School of Sitai, a Community Development Block (CDB) in Coochbehar was vandalised, and ballot papers were set on fire.
In North 24 Pargana district, the police recovered a ballot box from the drain after miscreants stole it. The filthy water of the sewage was seen coming out of the box.
In the Dinhata district, ballot papers were recovered from a pond. A batch of ballot papers was disposed of in the water so as to disrupt the elections.
In Howrah’s Tikiapara area, the locals vandalised the booth over an alleged proxy voting, the presiding officers left the spot, and the ballots were also left in place. The election roll call, the tables and chairs were all vandalised by the attackers.
At Islampur, an area in the Uttar Dinajpur district, the polling stopped within an hour or so of its beginning. The reason was attempts of capturing the booth, the presiding officers decided to suspend further polling and the booth was shut down.
The polling for the panchayat elections began at 7 am on July 8 amid tight security in the State. An estimated 5.67 crore voters decided the fates of 2.06 lakh candidates, vying for 73,887 seats in rural areas of West Bengal.
The counting of votes will take place on July 11.
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