Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said violence had erupted only at three places ahead of the July 8 panchayat polls over "local issues" and rejected the Opposition's charge that the Trinamul Congress was to blame for the clashes that marred the process of nomination filing.
“I have been feeling bad. Not because of anything else, but out of 73,000-74,000 booths, only at three places, three problematic incidents took place, that too on their own local issues,” the chief minister said in her first public statement on the rural polls.
“Our party is in no way involved. Our party has been operating under the stern instruction that everybody should be able to freely file nominations. That is why you must have seen, already over a lakh (Opposition) nominations have been submitted, which had never happened in any other state before this,” added the Trinamul chairperson at Maheshtala, on a day Bengal witnessed perhaps the most violence during the nomination-filing phase.
Hours after the chief minister's statement, Calcutta High Court lambasted her government and the state election commission while ordering the deployment of central forces to cover all areas which would go to the polls.
“In 2003, during the CPM era, I think 36 people died on the polling day. In 2008, a similar number. In 2013 (in the Trinamul era), under the then state election commissioner Mira Pande who had brought central forces, 39 people had died,” said Mamata.
She also brought up the incidents of violence in Chopra and Bhangar.
“The problem in Chopra, in no way, is to do with the party (Trinamul) involved. Those who did it did not get tickets from us, despite asking for the same from us till yesterday (Wednesday). But because there are adverse reports on them, because the party is not satisfied with them,” said the chief minister. “The Chopra incident was their internal matter…. I have ordered police to take strong action.”
“What happened in Bhangar, the new victor there in the Opposition, they started it on Tuesday…. Muslims are my brothers, but he has been misleading them, provoking them with communal slogans, and conducting vandalism, burglary, and arson. Therefore, there was retaliation yesterday (Wednesday) from our end — I will say what the truth is,” she said, apparently referring to the ISF’s Bhangar MLA Nawsad Siddique, who had tried in vain to meet Mamata at the state secretariat on Wednesday and demanded her (the state home minister’s) resignation on Thursday.
“What happened (in Bhangar) today (Thursday), I don’t know as I have been on the road. I have told the administration to handle it strongly.”
In a message to the Left, the chief minister suggested that they ought to be thankful as there were no retributive measures from her after she had ousted them from power in 2011.
Mamata said: “Some disgusting political parties, taking their names brings hatred and shame…. Nobody else used to be able to file nominations for elections, they used to get cent per cent vote share.”
“Today, they are making lofty claims. Declaring resistance. First, resist yourselves, check your vocabulary. Let good sense prevail, abandon sinister speech. A clap cannot happen single-handedly,” she added.
Mamata also spoke about the situation in BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Tripura, where the Opposition was allegedly prevented from contesting in “over 90 per cent” of the seats in local body elections.
Mamata attacked the inertia and reluctance to pursue a Pocso complaint by a minor against BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the WFI chief accused of sexual assault by a vast body of protesting wrestlers.
She mentioned the 155 central teams sent to examine various complaints against her government and the administration.
She rued how “(her) boys” were arrested for post-poll results violence in the state in 2021, while the administration was still under the Election Commission of India.
“Beating people up, slashing them, shooting to death in courts… a rule of monsters,” said the Trinamul chief.
