A BJP fact-finding team, which arrived in West Bengal on Wednesday, said it will visit areas hit by poll violence and speak to victims to assess the ground situation.

The four-member team led by former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said it plans to visit north and south Bengal districts.

“Violence and killings during rural polls are unacceptable. So many people have been killed; why have so many people had to die in this election? We will visit the violence-hit areas of north and south Bengal. Later, we will submit our report to our national president JP Nadda,” Prasad told reporters at the airport.

Besides Prasad, the team includes Satyapal Singh, Rajdeep Roy, and Rekha Verma.

The violence, which rocked the panchayat polls on Saturday, had claimed at least 15 lives while three more were murdered on counting day on Wednesday. Since elections were announced last month, at least 33 people have lost their lives in poll-related violence, with the ruling party suffering 60 per cent of the deaths.

The TMC mocked the fact-finding team and said it was an attempt to divert attention from the party's humiliating defeat.

“They should first send a fact-finding team to Manipur, which is burning for the last two months. The BJP's fact-finding team in West Bengal is an attempt to divert attention from its own organisational failure,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) is poised for a landslide win in the rural polls, capturing multiple districts and consolidating its control over rural Bengal for a third consecutive term.

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