Partha lashes out at team saffron for fomenting trouble

Kolkata: Partha Chatterjee, secretary general of Trinamool Congress, came down heavily on BJP on Friday, alleging that the party is creating trouble in different parts of the state with the sole intention of disturbing the law and order situation.

"The party leaders are trying to apply the same tricks they had applied in other states, to create trouble and disturb the law and order situation. But in Bengal, people are more conscious and they are following the incidents carefully," he said.

Chatterjee criticised state BJP president Dilip Ghosh for instigating the people by using provocative language. He said the delegation that met State Election Commissioner A K Singh on Thursday, had complained against Ghosh for instigating people.

"He is talking about beating up the police and our candidates. His body language does not go with the political tradition of Bengal. The way he talks at times, we feel that he has lost mental balance," he said.

He said that BJP and CPI-M leaders had "nothing else to do and so they are holding sit-in demonstration at Gandhi statue and in front of the office of the State Election Commission, alleging that their candidates had not been allowed to file nomination in different districts."

"The fact is that BJP has submitted nominations in nearly 50 percent seats. This would not have been possible had our party workers stopped them from filing nomination," Chatterjee added.

Meanwhile, Subrata Mukherjee, minister for Panchayat and Rural Development, said on Friday that there is no need to deploy Central forces and that state police is enough to conduct the Panchayat election without incidents.

Chatterjee said BJP leaders did not say a word when Central forces were withdrawn from Darjeeling and Jhargram. "Mamata Banerjee went to Darjeeling and won the confidence of the people. We had requested not to withdraw Central forces from Darjeeling, but that had fallen on deaf ears," he said.

Chatterjee said the rural populace has seen the changes that have taken place in rural Bengal over the past seven years and they will vote for the Trinamool candidates.

On the other hand, Left Front chairman Biman Bose said that Trinamool Congress has unleashed a reign of terror in the districts. He urged party workers to get united and face the situation.

Meanwhile, Calcutta High Court has instructed the SEC to provide security to the candidates. The SEC will file an affidavit on April 16 and the matter will come up for hearing on April 20. The case was filed by Congress.