BJP leaders meet EC, demand independent inquiry into incident in Mamata got injured

By PTI
NEW DELHI: A BJP delegation comprising Union Minister Piyush Goyal and party general secretary Bhupender Yadav on Friday met Election Commission officials and demanded an independent inquiry into the incident in which TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee got injured.

The BJP delegation met poll panel officials hours after a six-member group of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders met the EC demanding a high-level probe into the alleged attack on West Bengal Chief Minister in Nandigram that led to her injury.

Besides Goyal and Yadav, party leaders Sambit Patra, Anirban Ganguly and Swapan Dasgupta were also in the BJP delegation.

Addressing reporters after the meeting, Yadav said the BJP has demanded an independent inquiry into the incident in West Bengal’s Nandigram on March 10 when Banerjee got injured.

Yadav, a general secretary of the BJP, said, “The party also requested the election commission to make public the video of Banerjee’s rally in which she got injured.”

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The BJP leader said once a candidate files nomination, the poll panel maintains a visual record of his public engagements.

The saffron party also demanded that special observers be appointed for the Nandigram Assembly seat from where Banerjee is contesting against her protege-turned-adversary the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari.

Earlier in the day, a TMC delegation met the Election Commission and demanded a high-level probe into the alleged attack on Banerjee in Nandigram and claimed it was not an “unfortunate incident”, but a conspiracy.

The TMC met the full EC team, including Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora, for over an hour and submitted a memorandum to it, highlighting how BJP leaders in West Bengal had threatened the chief minister through tweets and other remarks.

In the memorandum, the TMC has made allegations against Suvendu Adhikari, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Nandigram in the upcoming state Assembly polls.

TMC leaders had also met EC officials in Bengal on Thursday, following which the poll body sent a strongly-worded letter to the party on its memorandum over injuries to Banerjee during the campaign, saying it looks “undignified to even respond” to allegations that the poll panel is doing things in the state at the behest of a “particular party”.