Groups of persons descended on New Town, on the outskirts of Calcutta, on Saturday to allegedly stop, shove and hit residents who stepped out to cast their votes on the day of rural polls.

Several parts of New Town went to polls on Saturday as they were included under the Jyangra Hatiara II gram panchayat.

In the planned areas of the New Town, three polling premises had been set up.

The biggest among the three was the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Government College, also known as New Town Government College, in the heart of New Town behind Central Mall, around 1.2km from the New Town bus stand in Action Area, with 10 booths.

The roads leading to the college had been blocked with traffic guardrails. Near each barricade stood large groups of bike-borne men and women.

Every time residents from nearby blocks such as AE, BC and BD tried approaching the polling station, their cars and two-wheelers were stopped by people and asked to leave.

Those on foot, however, were shoved by these men and women who said they were "enforcing the vote boycott rule".

"Kono vote ditey hobe na. Tora to boycott korechis. Fire jaa nahole bedharok maar khabi (There is no need to cast your votes. You people have boycotted the polls. Turn back or you will get thrashed)," some men in T-shirts and quarter pants told an elderly couple, Bipasha and Debabrata Das, who were making their way towards the booth.

A section of residents in New Town had been leading a campaign asking residents across all action areas to boycott the rural polls since they were announced.

Several signboards had been put up across New Town that read "Boycott panchayat vote in NKDA areas. By residents of New Town."

Accusing Trinamul of stopping genuine voters, CPM leader Anupam Ghosh called it "organised terror by Trinamul's goons in New Town".

Trinamul's MLA of Rajarhat-New Town, Tapas Chatterjee, blamed "the CPM and the BJP goons" for the heckling. He denied any role of his party.