The Election Commission of India on Wednesday imposed a weeklong ban on campaigning by Trinamul Congress MLA Narendranath Chakraborty for the forthcoming bypolls to the Asansol Lok Sabha and the Ballygunge Assembly seats after a video purportedly showed him issuing threats to BJP supporters.
Chakraborty represents Pandaveswar in West Burdwan and his Assembly seat is in the Asansol Lok Sabha segment. Trinamul has fielded actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha in Asansol, where the bypolls will be held along with Ballygunge on April 12.
In its order, the EC said Chakraborty had violated the Model Code of Conduct, the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and sections of the Indian Penal Code that criminalise “undue influence at elections” by his alleged threat speech.
The English translation of Chakraborty’s speech in Bengali cited in a report from Bengal’s chief electoral officer says: “Those who are rigid BJPs who cannot be defeated has to be intimidated (chomkate hobe). Tell them that if you go to vote it will be presumed that you will vote for BJP and after vote where you will live will be your risk. And if you do not go to vote then we will presume that you have supported us and you may live, do trade, work anywhere as you please and we are with you. Is it clear.”
Chakraborty had denied that he had delivered any such speech. “It may be an old video. The then party president of West Burdwan (Jitendra Tiwari) had made us do many things. He is now in the BJP.”
Invoking Article 324 of the Constitution and all other powers vested with the EC, the poll panel prohibited Chakraborty from “holding any public meetings, public processions, public rallies, roadshows and interviews, public utterances in media (electronic, print, social media)” for the bypolls from 10am on March 30 to 8pm on April 6.
Before cracking the whip on the Trinamul MLA, the EC had not taken such a stringent action in recent memory.
Telangana BJP MLA T. Raja Singh was barred from campaigning for only 72 hours last month for threatening to use bulldozers at places that did not vote for his party in the recent Uttar Pradesh elections. Bulldozers were also used as props for campaigning by party supporters in the state.
Union minister of state Anurag Thakur, who had led a crowd in raising slogans to shoot “traitors” and BJP MP Parvesh Verma who had said people at the womenled stir against the citizenship regime at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi “could enter houses rape and kill your sisters and daughters” were merely dropped from the list of star campaigners for the Delhi Assembly polls in 2020.
Asansol BJP nominee Agnimitra Paul has welcomed the punishment for Chakraborty.
“We welcome the punishment taken by the EC but that is not enough to restrict such a muscle man. We demand that he be put under house arrest until the election is over. He can do anything to deter voters,” said Paul.
Trinamul leader and Asansol deputy mayor Abhijit Ghatak said the order of the EC was not impartial.
“It is a one-sided order of the commission. They are working at the behest of the BJP. We have been noticing malpractice and partiality since the last Assembly polls. The BJP used the EC for its own interest,” he said.
Additional reporting by Abhijeet Chatterjee
