Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday accused Trinamul of unleashing violence against BJP workers during and after the July 8 panchayat polls in Bengal.
Sources in the saffron camp said Modi’s allegations were calculated to vilify Mamata Banerjee and her party, which is a constituent of the INDIA alliance, at a time when she is trying to take on the BJP nationally ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
“The panchayat polls recently concluded there (Bengal). The nation saw how the Trinamul played with blood in these elections,” Modi said, virtually addressing BJP’s zilla parishad chiefs and their deputies from eastern and northeastern states on the first day of a two-day meet in Kolaghat, East Midnapore. BJP national president J.P. Nadda was there in person.
“What is the way they function? At first, they will not give time to prepare for the polls. They will announce the date to file nominations very quickly. Then do whatever you can to prevent anyone from the Opposition, from the BJP, from filing nominations. If someone cleverly reaches the place to file the nominations, then create problems (for them) to contest the polls,” he went on, adding that Trinamul continued its life-claiming assaults even after the polls are over.
According to estimates, poll violence took around 60 lives, with many Trinamul workers and supporters among them.
The rural polls were announced by the state election commissioner Rajiva Sinha on June 8, a day after he took office. Breaking conventions, Sinha did not call for an all-party meeting before announcing polls.
The filing of nominations started on June 9. Every day, only four hours were allotted for the nominations, prompting the Opposition — the BJP, the CPM and the Congress alike — to allege that the poll panel was working at the behest of Trinamul to create problems for the Opposition to file nominations.
The polls were held on July 8 and the results came out on July 11.
“They (Trinamul) not only threatened BJP workers, they also intimidated voters. They made the lives of the supporters and relatives of BJP (workers) a living hell,” Modi said. He alleged rigging during the polls and manipulation during the counting process.
The BJP’s surprising win of 18 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal in 2019 was widely credited as a backlash against the violent 2018 rural polls. The saffron camp, according to sources, seeks to use the 2023 rural poll violence in order to reap benefits in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Unless a narrative around the violence is propagated, a state BJP member leader said, it will be tough to revive the party’s vote share. While it got around 40 per cent votes in 2019 and 38 per cent in 2021, its vote share fell to around 23 per cent during rural polls.
However, the BJP won over 11,000 seats across three tiers of the panchayat, which Modi hailed.
