Trinamool Congress workers were beaten up, many of their houses were torched and people were thrown out of villages for casting votes in favour of the ruling party. These are some of the many allegations those have come up against CPI(M) and Congress in the post poll violence in Birbhum and South Dinajpur.
This comes at the time when senior leaders of both CPI(M) and Congress are trying to make the top brass of Election Commission (EC) believe that Trinamool Congress workers are terrorising electorates in the villages. It may be mentioned that 11 Trinamool Congress workers were killed since the election dates were announced.
Tension started mounting in villages soon after the elections on Sunday evening when local leaders of CPI(M) and Congress started threatening the Trinamool Congress workers. These villages include Parui, Mohammad Bazar, Hasan in Birbhum and Balurghat in South Dinajpur.
In Birbhum’s Mohammad Bazar, four tribal families were thrown out of their houses for casting votes in favour of Trinamool Congress. They were forced to spend the night in a temple in their Katgaria village. They were threatened not to enter their houses and were asked to move out of the village.
Members of four families including that of Sundari Hembram and Rabilal Hembram including children were beaten up and thrown out of their houses by CPI(M) workers headed by their local leader Sapui Hansda on Sunday night.
It may be mentioned that Shibenta Hembram was killed allegedly by Hansda and his men six months ago. The families were known to be Trinamool Congress supporters in the area. So CPI(M) workers had threatened them to not cast their votes. Despite of witnessing a murder in the family, some members Sundari’s family went to exercise their power to vote.
The house of a Trinamool Congress leader was torched at Budhigram village near Hasan in Birbhum on late Sunday night. There was a scuffle between the son of the Trinamool Congress leader Abu Salim and two Congress workers during the elections in the area on Sunday afternoon.
The leader was threatened following the scuffle. House and a party office of Trinamool Congress were also torched. Two fire tenders from Rampurhat were pressed into service to douse the flames. A complaint was lodged against five persons with Tarapith police station in this connection.
Seven persons were beaten up in a clash that broke out between Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) workers at Parui in Birbhum. CPI(M) workers hurled bombs at the supporters of the rulling party leaving them injured.
The situation was quite similar at Balurghat in South Dinajpur where a Trinamool Congress worker Khokan Sarkar was beaten up and the house of his party colleague Subrata Roy was ransacked allegedly by RSP workers.
The attack was led by RSP leader Arijit Mohanta and the victims’ houses were attacked as they went to give their votes despite being threatened to not go.
Besides the post poll incidents, five worker of the ruling party including two women were beaten up when they went to put up flags of Trinamool Congress ahead of Mamata Banerjee’s election campaign at Pandua in Hooghly. Three of them were admitted to Pandua Rural Hospital.
