A Trinamul gram panchayat member, along with his party workers, ransacked the booth office of the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited at a Duare Sarkar camp in West Burdwan’s Kanksa on Saturday, alleging that two families in his locality did not get electricity despite applying for connection five months ago.

However, when the state electricity distribution officials issued a written statement clarifying why connections were not given, the Trinamul leaders apologised to the government employees.

When the camp started around 11am at Krishnapur market complex in Kanksa, hundreds of villagers assembled at the camp to get their work done.

Then, Trinamul panchayat member Swapan Sutradhar and party’s local president Kajal Sheikh, along with party workers, arrived at the camp and got involved in arguments with the power department employees.

They alleged that two families did not get electricity connection despite applying during the last Duare Sarkar five months ago.

Officials of the power utility tried to pacify the Trinamul leaders when they suddenly overturned the tables and tore official papers at the booth.

They also refused to allow the power employees to work until electricity connections were provided to the two families.

“Our chief minister introduced Duare Sarkar to help people but employees are maligning the government. The two families didn’t get power despite applying for connection at an earlier edition of the camp five months ago. This has exposed us to questions and criticisms,” said Sutradhar.

One of the applicants Ajit Bagdi said he had applied for a domestic electricity connection at the Duare Sarkar camp last November, but to no avail.

Later, a police team from the nearby Molandighi outpost brought the situation under control. The camp resumed operation after that.

WBSEDCL officials present there said the matter would be looked into urgently.

A few hours later, theWBSEDCL issued a written “statement of fact” to the media. The power utility admitted that it received two applications from Ajit Bagdi and Sukumar Bagdi on November 18 last year. However, the statement stated that the two applicants didn’t deposit the amount they had been asked to get their new domestic connections.

“As the payment has not been made electricity connection was not provided to them,” a power official said.

After the statement, embarrassed Trinamul leaders apologised to the WBSEDCL officials at the camp and shook hands with them.

“We were misguided by the two villagers. They were complaining to us but we should have made enquiries before reacting,” said Sutradhar.