FIR lodged against Roopa Ganguly for manhandling polling agent

Voters of North Howrah Assembly constituency on Monday witnessed a theatre scene enacted by the BJP Roopa Ganguly in polling stations.

Pandemonium broke out in and around a polling station in North Howrah Assembly constituency when the BJP candidate Roopa Ganguly entered the booth suspecting false voting. The saga ended with a complaint that was lodged against her on charges of beating up an electorate.

This comes on the heels of another recent incident when the BJP candidate from Mayureswar Assembly constituency, Locket Chatterjee’s misbehaved with a presiding officer on the day of the poll in Birbhum on April 17.

On Monday too, Chaterjee got entangled in to a verbal duel with the polling agent of Trinamool Congress when she went to cast her vote in Kamarhati Assembly constituency.

Like all other candidates, Ganguly was also busy hopping from one place to another in the constituency to keep a tab on the poll process. Turning all apprehension of violence on the day of election in Howrah to be untrue, the poll was passing off peacefully since the morning apart from a few incidents of snags in EVMs in some booths. 

Suddenly, Ganguly with good number of her supporters marched towards Aurobindo High School at Bamungachi in Salkia. She entered the booth and started taking some photographs. It led to tension in the area. When protested against taking photographs inside the polling booth, a verbal duel ensued when she claimed that she took the photographs as false voting was going on in the booth.

Going a step ahead from Chatterjee, Ganguly raised her voice as the presiding officer in the booth is an aged person. Describing the appearance of the presiding officer, she later said: “An old man has been posted here and it seems he is drugged. Thus I had to step in.”

The Congress candidate from the constituency Santosh Pathak, also reached the polling station. Local residents and Trinamool Congress supporters gheraoed and staged a demonstration as soon as they came out of the polling station protesting against the purposefully created trouble in the booth when the election was passing off peacefully.

Again in Shri Krishna Seva Siksha Niketan School, Ganguly got engaged in a scuffle with Trinamool Congress workers following an altercation. Losing her temper, Ganguly pushed a woman Soma Das with whom she had an exchange of words outside the polling station. Das received an injury and she was taken to Jaiswal Hospital in Howrah. She later lodged an FIR against Ganguly.

Meanwhile, Locket Chatterjee on Monday got engaged into an altercation with the polling agent of Trinamool Congress when she went to cast her vote at Ariadaha in North 24-Parganas. The Trinamool Congress agent protested as the poll process was getting delayed without any proper reason.