Doctored footages basis of Oppn’s plaints against EC

The results were disastrous. The chief electoral officer Sunil Gupta said that the majority of the complaints received by the Commission on Monday were looked into and found to be baseless. He said the Commission on Monday received 1,878 complaints of which 1,810 had been disposed of and 68 were being looked into.

From the morning a television channel telecast the picture of a youth carrying a revolver loitering in the Sonamukhi area of Bankura. Immediately, local leaders of Left Front and their counterparts in the city along with the anchor of the television channel started criticising the integrity of the Election Commission. 

They also questioned the role of the Central Forces. Meanwhile, the Left leaders alleged that Trinamool Congress had connived with the Central Forces. Senior leaders of CPI(M) and Congress called up senior leaders of the EC and urged them to look into the matter. 

After investigation it was found that the picture was concocted and nothing of this sort happened in Sonamukhi on Monday. 

The television channel stopped telecasting the incident but neither the Left leaders nor their counterparts in Congress tendered apology to the EC.

The same TV channel again telecast an incident and alleged that despite deployment of Central Forces, bombs were hurled indiscriminately at Sonamukhi in Bankura. 

Earlier, they had shown Central Force personnel buying sweets and bottled water and tried to justify that they were not performing their duties properly. Suryakanta Mishra, CPI(M) candidate from Narayangarh said that such inaction by the Central Forces was intolerable. 

He called up senior officials of EC and asked them to look into the matter. Arguments by Congress and Left leaders and well thought out statements by the anchor went on for over an hour. The Election Commission conducted an inquiry and found that not bombs but crackers were been burst from early morning to ward off elephants to ensure peaceful election. 

However, the TV channel also did not tender an apology.

Late in the afternoon, the same channel telecast news that a Congress office in Sabang from where Manas Bhuniya had been contesting was reduced to ashes. Sunil Gupta said a probe was conducted and it was found that no Congress office existed there.

It may be recalled that some days ago Trinamool Congress said that the way a particular channel had been twisting incidents was unfortunate.