News Analysis India

Tag: West Bengal Elections 2021

  • ‘Mamata has to be defeated to bring about much-desired change in Bengal’: Amit Shah in Nandigram

    By PTI
    NANDIGARAM: Exuding confidence that BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari will win the elections from Nandigram by a record margin, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said defeating TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, a co-contestant from the seat, was “absolutely necessary to bring about the much-desired change in Bengal.

    Shah, while talking to reporters at a party office in Nandigram, said the saffron camp’s victory margin “should be so big that no politician will dare to fool the masses with false promises ever again”.

    “By defeating Mamata didi in Nandigram, you can bring about the much-desired change in West Bengal. You defeat her here, The TMC will automatically get defeated in other parts of the state,” he said.

    ​ALSO READ | Amit Shah should focus on UP, Bengal doesn’t tolerate violence against women: Mamata Banerjee

    Referring to a recent incident of rape in Nandigram, Shah wondered why women are not safe in the state, despite “tall claims” made by Banerjee.

    “She talks big about women’s safety. What is the situation here? A woman was raped here, just a few kilometres away from where she has put up in Nandigram,” he said.

    All eyes are on battleground Nandigram, where West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has locked horns with her protege-turned-rival Adhikari.

    The campaigning in the constituency, which will go to polls on April 1, is set to end at 5 pm.

    Earlier in the day, in a show of might, Shah held a massive roadshow in the high-profile constituency.

    Standing atop a lorry, decked up with flowers and BJP flags, Shah, with Adhikari by his side, waved at enthusiastic crowds that gathered along the four-km stretch between Bethuria and Rayapara in the East Midnapore assembly segment.

  • ‘Police from BJP-ruled states terrorising voters in Nandigram’: Mamata Banerjee in rally

    By PTI
    NANDIGRAM: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday alleged police forces from BJP- ruled states have been brought in to “terrorise” voters in Nandigram assembly seat where she is locked in a keen contest with confidante-turned-adversary Suvendu Adhikari of the saffron party.

    Before leading a colourful road show from Bhangabera, Banerjee told a public meeting in Sonachura that police personnel from Madhya Pradesh have been deployed to “terrorise” voters in villages and tilt the balance in favour of the BJP.

    She, however, said she was confident of a massive win from the seat and also about leading her party to a third straight term in power.

    In a veiled threat to Adhikari, she said, “They (police forces from outside) will be here only for a few days. Take no mistake, we will be back and give the betrayers a befitting reply.”

    ​ALSO READ | Bitter war of words between West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Adhikaris in Nandigram

    She said the Election Commission is being apprised of the alleged acts of impropriety by police personnel from outside.

    Banerjee urged the people to be alert against “any bid to incite communal riots” in Nandigram ahead of the polling on April 1.

    “They (the BJP) have plans to kill their own people and pass it off as our handiwork to engineer riots. We have the information. Be on guard,” she said without naming the saffron party.

    “Nandigram stood united in the battle against forcible land acquisition in which people from all communities participated. Be on guard against any bid to fuel tension by keeping any object in places of worship. We are all united. Defeat the riot mongers,” she said.

    #WATCH | During election cast your votes peacefully. Keep in mind, ‘cool cool Trinamool, thanda thanda cool cool, vote pabe joda phool’. Keep your mind cool for 48 hours: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee in in Sona Chura, Nandigram. pic.twitter.com/jfFa3ZIrgP
    — ANI (@ANI) March 30, 2021

    The TMC supremo led the 3-km road show that meandered through the narrow alleys of Nandigram, as crowds shouted “Jai Hind, Jai Bangla, Mamata Banerjee Zindabad” and denounced “Mir Jafars (betrayers)”.

  • Bitter war of words between West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Adhikaris in Nandigram

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The poll campaigning at Nandigram reached its crescendo and there was a bitter war of words Monday between the main rivals – Trinamool Congress’ Mamata Banerjee and BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, her close follower-turned-political foe.

    The lights are trained on the high voltage campaign for the prestigious seat in Purba Medinipur district, which is set to conclude on Tuesday evening as the polling there is slated to be held in the second phase on April 1.

    In a barb aimed at Adhikari and his father Sisir Adhikari, who are influential political leaders of the area, Banerjee claimed that the entry of police in Nandigram on March 14, 2007 which had led to the killing of 14 supporters of the historic anti-farmland acquisition movement, could not have taken place without their knowledge.

    ALSO READ: ‘Greedy Suvendu Adhikari na ghar ka na ghat ka’, says Mamata Banerjee

    “Without the knowledge of the father-son duo, police could not have entered Nandigram on that day,” she said.

    “It is my fault that I had showered so much love on them,” said the TMC supremo, who has in her campaign meetings branded the Adhikari family without naming them as “traitors” after Suvendu, his father Sisir and brother Soumendu Adhikari quit her party to join BJP.

    “What did I not do for them. I had made him (Suvendu Adhikari) transport, environment, irrigation minister, I had made him the chairman of Hoogly River Bridge Commissioner. I made his father (Sisisr Adhikari) chairman of Digha Development Authority, I made his brother (Soumendu Adhikari) chairman of Haldia Development Authority. I made his brother the chairman of Contai Municipality.

    “I had given at least 10 plum postings to a single family and this is how they reciprocated, this is how they betrayed as venomous traitors,” she said.

    ALSO READ: Amit Shah should focus on UP, Bengal doesn’t tolerate violence against women, says Mamata Banerjee

    Banerjee told a public meeting in Nandigram during the day that while those involved in the movement were framed at the behest of BJP government at Centre, the Adhikari family, which too was involved in the agitation, had remained unscathed.

    “This showed the extent of understanding and setting between them.”

    She claimed that goons of the then ruling CPI(M) had entered Nandigram in police uniform but wore slippers which gave away their identity.

    “Similar planning is being done here again,” she alleged.

    “Didn’t the traitor (Suvendu Adhikari) know that the police will enter Nandigram on that fateful day and that there would be trouble? How many times did they speak to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya (the then chief minister)?” Banerjee asked, claiming that she has some information as the chief minister.

    ALSO READ: BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari’s brother’s vehicle attacked in Contai, blames TMC

    Reacting sharply to Banerjee’s charges, Sisir Adhikari said, “She is speaking nonsense as she has understood that she is going to lose in Nandigram.”

    “Banerjee has reaped the benefits of the Nandigram movement due to Suvendu who had risked his life in the fight against the CPI-M terror. She had used him, she had used me in her rise to the seat of the CM. Now she is speaking against us as we had protested against her way of functioning. She stands exposed before the people of Nandigram and Bengal,” he said.

    He hit back at Banerjee for her allegations that the Adhikari family had shifted allegiance to BJP to save themselves from being hounded by the central agencies after amassing huge properties in the Kanthi-Digha-Nandigram belt.

    “We had shifted to BJP after being ill treated and abused by the TMC leadership for the past several months despite giving our best for the TMC. People of Purba Medinipur (district) will give her a befitting reply,” Sisir Adhikari said.

    “The TMC supremo is mouthing inanities after seeing the poor turnout in her meetings and becoming certain that she will be defeated by a huge margin in Nandigram,” Suvendu Adhikari said.

    On Banerjee’s allegations that he is polarizing voters in Nandigram and engineering riots, the BJP leader said “In fact it is she who is communalising the atmosphere to get more votes.”

    “She had been pursuing the politics of appeasement for all these years and had sown the seeds of division. We (BJP) believe in taking along all in the path of development; we don’t believe in preferential treatment to one community.

    “In Nandigram those supporting her policy are getting isolated. She can see the writing on the wall,” he said.

    CPI-M leader Bikash Bhattacharya said, “The Nandigram incident was a conspiracy, an attempt to malign the then CPI-M led Left Front government”.

    Party leader Sujan Chakraborty said Banerjee is getting exposed by her own utterances.

    “She will be unmasked as more days go by,” he added.

  • TMC, BJP brought West Bengal to ruins: Former CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya came down heavily on the ruling TMC and the BJP on Monday, accusing them of ruining the state and its secular credentials.

    Bhattacharya, 76, said it is only the Left-Congress-ISF alliance that can bring the state out of the darkness.

    Noting that “the silence of a crematorium” prevails in Singur and Nandigram, he alleged that under the present dispensation, the state has gone backwards in agriculture, while no industry was established during its 10-year-tenure.

    Anti-land acquisition movements led by the Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee at Singur and Nandigram in 2007-08 had jolted the mighty Left Front government and laid the foundation of the TMC rule in West Bengal.

    “The conspirators of the devious play of that period are now divided in two groups engaged in mudslinging against each other,” Bhattacharya said.

    Young people of Bengal have lost employment opportunities and the meritorious and skilled left for other states owing to the situation, the CPI(M) veteran said in a statement.

    “Corruption, extortion and syndicate-raj have made the lives of the state’s people unbearable,” he said, adding, security and respect of women are endangered due to antisocial activities.

    “Religious harmony, which used to be West Bengal’s pride, has been poisoned,” the ailing former CM claimed.

    Bhattacharya said the TMC’s autocratic rule on one hand and the BJP’s politics of divide and religious polarisation on the other have brought the state to ruins.

  • TMC MP Nusrat Jahan loses temper during roadshow, stokes controversy

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Actor and TMC MP Nusrat Jahan has courted controversy after she apparently lost cool and abandoned a roadshow midway in North 24 Parganas district, contending that she does not take part in any rally that lasts over an hour, even if it is in support of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

    Jahan, who was recently campaigning for TMC candidate Narayan Goswami at Guma in Ashoknagar segment, suddenly refused to take part in the roadshow notwithstanding party workers’ fervent pleas to stay back.

    “I am participating in the roadshow for more than an hour, (which) I don’t do even for the chief minister; Are you joking?” the Basirhat MP could be heard telling TMC supporters.

    Goswami later said that Jahan had suffered a sprain due to which she could not continue to be a part of the roadshow.

    Looking to seize the initiative, opposition BJP posted a video of the episode on Twitter with the hashtag ‘#MamataLosingNandigram’.

    Banerjee is locked in a fierce contest with her protege-turned-adversary and BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district, which will go to polls in the second phase on April 1.

  • TMC hints at role of BJP insider in leaking ‘Mukul Roy-Shishir Bajoria audio clip’

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress on Sunday hinted that the audio tape in which BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy purportedly told another leader Shishir Bajoria about how to influence the Election Commission was leaked by someone in the saffron camp.

    Reacting to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s allegation that the release of the audio clip by the Mamata Banerjee-led party proved that phones of opposition leaders were being tapped in the state, the TMC’s national spokesperson Derek OBrien said that it was up to the BJP to find out who had leaked it.

    “If there is a conversation between A and B, logic demands that either A or B has leaked the information,” O’Brien told a press conference in Kolkata.

    “We were so far thinking that Khela Hobe (game will happen) means the battle between the TMC and the BJP. Now there seems to be another group. Let them (BJP) figure it out by themselves,” he said indicating that there is a disgruntled camp in the saffron party which has leaked the audio clip.

    O’Brien also asked the members of the media to find out who was behind the leaking of the audio tape.

    The TMC on Saturday released to the media an audio clip of the purported conversation between Roy and Bajoria, who is also an industrialist.

    In the audio clip, Roy is heard telling Bajoria to convince the EC to allow polling agents, even from outside a given constituency, to function at all polling stations.

    “See, we have to include this point while meeting the EC. We have to say that this rule that polling agents can only be deputed in their localities should be changed. The only criteria should be that the person is a citizen of the state. The BJP won’t be able to have its agents in a large number of booths otherwise,” Roy purportedly told Bajoria.

    Polling agents of parties, under the existent rules, are allowed only at booths in localities where they normally reside.

    The rule had been relaxed last week to allow agents to be appointed from any part of an assembly constituency.

    At a press conference in New Delhi, the Union home minister hit out at the TMC claiming that the release of the audio shows that phones of opposition leaders were being tapped in West Bengal.

    The TMC claimed that the audio clip had “blown the lid off” the nexus between the BJP and the Election Commission.

    O’Brien said that the poll panel apparently changed the time tested provision at the behest of the BJP which doesn’t have enough people to deploy as agents in every booth and the TMC opposed this alteration.

    “The BJP is literally desperate. They (BJP) have got together all agencies. They are doing this to counter Mamata Banerjee and her development initiatives,” the Rajya Sabha MP said.

    However, no such ploy will be able to stop Banerjee’s victory and “the gas balloon of (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and Shah will be deflated on May 2” when votes will be counted, he said.

    Referring to Shah’s assertion that the BJP will win over 200 seats in the 294-member West Bengal assembly, O’Brien said that the senior BJP leader has a poor track record in making such predictions.

    “Shah had predicted a landslide victory for the BJP in Bihar in 2015 assembly polls and his party got much fewer seats. In Delhi, the BJP had got a few seats in 2015 and 2020 assembly polls. Similar is the case with Jharkhand and Maharashtra in recent times,” he said.

  • High voter turnout in first phase affirms people of Bengal want ‘asol paribartan’: Mithun Chakraborty

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: BJP’s star campaigner Mithun Chakraborty on Sunday said that high polling percentage in the first phase of West Bengal assembly elections affirms that people want ‘asol paribartan’ (real change).

    Around 84.13 per cent of the 73.80 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the first phase of voting in 30 constituencies on March 27, as per an updated EC report.

    The 70-year-old actor-turned-politician is canvassing for BJP candidates in the formerly Maoist-affected Junglemahal region.

    He had joined the saffron party on March 7.

    Sporting a grey kurta with a saffron scarf loosely hanging around his neck, Chakraborty undertook roadshows in different poll-bound areas in Paschim Medinipur and Bankura districts during the day.

    Standing atop a saffron-hued MUV decked with marigold, he greeted people in his trademark style and the crowd cheered him back.

    “The high polling percentage in the first phase affirmed that people of West Bengal want ‘asol paribartan’ (real change). It is coming.

    “I can also feel the palpable enthusiasm among the people who have assembled for the roadshow,” he told reporters at Indas in Bankura district. He also held well-attended roadshows at Debra and Keshpur in Paschim Medinipur district.

    Chakraborty said that people had voted the TMC to power to end the Left Front’s oppressive rule but the wishes of the common man remain unfulfilled as tyranny continues unabated.

    “You are threatened with water supply disconnection if you don’t vote for a particular party. We want this era of threat to end. To bring ‘asol paribartan’, you have to vote for the BJP. Every vote is important,” he told the participants.

  • BJP will win 26 of 30 seats in Bengal, 37 of 47 seats in Assam in first phase of polling: Amit Shah

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah on Sunday said according to the feedback received from the ground, the saffron party will win 26 of the 30 seats that went to polls in the first phase of the West Bengal Assembly election.

    Similarly, he said the party has got clear-cut indications that it will win 37 of the 47 Assembly seats in Assam that went to polls in the first phase on Saturday.

    Addressing a press conference at his residence here, Shah said the peaceful polling and the high voter turnouts are positive signs for the two states and thanked the voters.

    He also expressed gratitude towards the Election Commission (EC) for conducting peaceful elections in Assam and violence-prone West Bengal.

    According to the feedback received from the party workers on the ground, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win 26 of the 30 seats in West Bengal and 37 of the 47 seats in Assam in the first phase of polling, Shah said.

    He exuded confidence that the saffron party will register a massive electoral victory in West Bengal by winning more than 200 seats in the 294-member Assembly and also improve its tally in Assam.

    Shah also appealed to the people of Nandigram, from where West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee is contesting the polls, to vote for change and a better future of the state.

    Rejecting the TMC’s criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh, he said the visit is to strengthen bilateral ties and has nothing to do with elections.

     

  • Bengal recorded 84.13% polling in first phase of assembly elections

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Voting percentage in 30 assembly seats that went to polls during the first phase of West Bengal elections was 84.13 per cent, according to an updated report of the Election Commission.Polling was “mostly peaceful”, barring a few sporadic incidents of violence, an EC official said on Sunday.

    Of the 30 seats that went to the polls on Saturday, nine were in Purulia, four each in Bankura and Jhargram, six in Paschim Medinipur, and seven in Purba Medinipur district.

    The highest polling percentage of 86.32 was recorded in the Purba Medinipur district, followed by Jhargram (84.74 per cent), Paschim Medinipur (84.71 per cent), Bankura (84.27 per cent) and Purulia (81.77 per cent).

    “This is approximate data. We are working on it and the final figure will be released soon,” the official told PTI.

    Till 5 pm on Saturday, 79.79 per cent polling was recorded.

    Voting had begun at 7 am and concluded at 6.30 pm, with the timing extended by an hour and thirty minutes to ensure that COVID protocols are followed.

    Sporadic incidents of violence were reported from various places that went to the polls during the first phase of the state assembly elections, the EC official said.

    Voting was held in 30 seats – several of them part of the once-Naxal-hit Jangalmahal region — amid tight security and strict adherence to COVID-19 guidelines, he said.

    At least 10 people were arrested for allegedly being involved in incidents of violence that occurred in various places during the first phase of polling.

    The ruling TMC and the opposition BJP are in a fierce fight in the state elections.

  • Bengal elections 2021: Activists of BJP, TMC clash in Nandigram, three injured

    By PTI
    NANDIGRAM: A clash broke out on Saturday between activists of the BJP and the TMC in Purba Medinipur’s Nandigram constituency — which is set to go to polls on April 1 — leaving at least three persons seriously injured, a senior police officer here said.

    Seikh Sufiyan, the election agent of TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, however, claimed that goons hired by the BJP carried out an attack on the workers of the state’s ruling party, a charge denied by the saffron camp.

    “All three, who sustained injuries during the attack, are activists of the TMC. They were rushed to SSKM hospital in Kolkata. The condition of one of them has been stated to be serious,” Sufiyan said.

    BJP goons have “let loose a reign of terror” in Nandigram over the past 15 days, he alleged.

    “These goons have been visiting homes of TMC activists to attack them, twisting their hands and even snatching gold chains. The police, however, are not doing anything about it,” he said.

    Denying Sufiyan’s allegation, the senior police officer said action was immediately taken to bring the situation under control and restore peace in the region.

    Local BJP leaders, on their part, contended that the TMC men are trying to disrupt peace in the constituency — where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is locked in a fierce battle with protege-turned-adversary Suvendu Adhikari.

    “None of our workers was involved in any attack on TMC activists. On the contrary, the ruling camp members assaulted our karyakartas during Suvendu Adhikari’s rallies. The three TMC men, undergoing treatment, must be victims of infighting,” a saffron party leader said.