TMC, BJP Delegations Meet EC on Nandigram, Demand Probe

The injuries to Banerjee “were not a result of an unfortunate incident but that of a conspiracy,” TMC said.

(Photo: IANS)

Delegations of Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the latter comprising Union Minister Piyush Goyal and party general secretary Bhupender Yadav, on Friday, 12 March met with Election Commission representatives in Delhi and gave their memorandums on the incident involving Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee being injured.

The injuries to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram "were not a result of an unfortunate incident but that of a conspiracy," the TMC delegation said on Friday. The party delegation of BJP also demanded an 'impartial and objective investigation’ into incident into the alleged attack.

The West Bengal Chief Secretary and other officials submitted a report to the EC following the meets.

What TMC Said

The delegation comprised of six members and included Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora.

After the meeting, TMC MP Saugata Roy was quoted as saying, "We've demanded a high-level probe into the attack on Mamata Banerjee at Nandigram. When the incident happened, there was no police presence there. The events leading up to the attempt on her life leave no doubt that the attack was part of a deep-rooted conspiracy."

“We left it to the ECI to decide the source of investigation, we didn’t demand any specific investigation, but we mentioned in our letter to the ECI that there should be an unbiased investigation.”

TMC MP Saugata Roy, as quoted by ANI

The memorandum also referred to the tweets and remarks made by the leaders of the BJP on the TMC supremo, news agency PTI reported.

A reference to BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari – who had recently switched over to the saffron party from the TMC and is squaring off against Banerjee from the Nandigram seat – was also made.

"When an attempt was made on the life of Ms Banerjee, in which she was grievously hurt, to cover up the attack, eyewitnesses were planted, illustratively, eyewitnesses Chittaranjan Das and Debabrata Das, who testified that Ms Banerjee's car was hit against an iron pillar, are associates of Suvendu Adhikari, BJP candidate from Nandigram [sic]," the memorandum reportedly said.

What BJP Said

BJP Rajya Sabha MP S Dasgupta told news agency ANI that the party “discussed the Nandigram incident and raised that according to SOP, all events centred on nomination filing are videographed by EC. They certainly must be in possession of it.”

The memorandum thus read, “It would be in the fitness of things that the unedited/raw video-footages of the alleged incident and the proceedings, in the custody of this Hon’ble Commission, be released at the earliest.”

Saying that this would help end all speculation around the incident and “repose the electorates’ faith in this sacrosanct process,” the BJP memorandum cast aspersions on TMC saying that “Ms. Banerjee’s party members have indulged in deliberate mis-information campaign and canards against the Election Commission.”

Appealing for a fair election practice, the delegation asked for a Special Observer for the highly sensitive Nandigram constituency and asked for web cast facilities to be made available in all polling booths of AC Nandigram and all other highly contested constituencies.

EC-TMC Tussle

The meetings on Friday came a day after a tussle emerged between the poll body and the TMC over the incident in Nandigram. Responding to the TMC's letter on the incident, the Election Commission of India on Thursday called it "full of insinuations and averments".

Banerjee was allegedly attacked while campaigning in Nandigram on Wednesday, following which the ECI had sought a report on the incident.

A delegation of leaders from the TMC, comprising MP Derek O'Brien, and state ministers Chandrima Bhattacharya and Partha Chatterjee, had on Thursday visited the Election Commission office in Kolkata to file a complaint over the alleged attack.

In a letter submitted to the EC, the party had insinuated a link between the removal of the erstwhile DGP Virendra and the “brazen” attack, and alleged that it was a “deep-rooted conspiracy to take the life of our Chairperson.”