After a wave of violence claimed at least 10 lives in West Bengal during Panchayat polls on Saturday, West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state general secretary Jagannath Chattopadhyay wrote to the State Election Commission and demanded repolling.
“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,” Chattopadhyay said in a letter. “The incidence of violence, booth capturing, intimidating, using of arms etc were so huge that it is still taking time to compile the same. Since last night, TMC has inflicted another round of reign of terror, burning houses, looting shops, kidnapping our candidates, and agents resulting in many people being forced to flee from their homes. This is further delaying the process of compiling the list,” the letter read.
“Under the circumstances, we demand that the counting date delayed so that there is time to make a proper assessment of the re-poll required,” it stated.
Meanwhile, he further met State Election Commission, Rajeev Sinha and complained about booth capturing in the Panchayat polls.
“Around 10,000-12,000 booths were captured in the panchayat elections. We gave the complete list to Rajiv Sinha and demanded re-election. We want this election to be held under CAPF security,” he added.
Earlier today, BJP leaders protest outside the State Election Commission building in Kolkata over the violence during the Panchayat elections.
Multiple incidents of violence earlier on Saturday cast a long shadow on the conduct of the panchayat polls across the state.
West Bengal State Election Commission on Sunday said the Police have confirmed 10 deaths in poll-related violence across the state.
There were reports of booth capturing, damage of ballot boxes, and assaults on presiding officers in several districts, such as Murshidabad, Cooch Behar, Malda, South 24 Parganas, North Dinajpur, and Nadia.
Polling occurred on Saturday at 7 am amid tight security in the state in 73,887 seats in rural areas of West Bengal with 5.67 crore people deciding the fate of around 2.06 lakh candidates. The counting of votes will take place on July 11.