The Election Commission on Sunday warned West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that her conduct at a polling booth in Nandigram was under its scanner and rejected her allegations of rigging and violence on April 1, the day of voting for the second phase of State Assembly elections.
Ms. Banerjee, who is a candidate from Nandigram, reached a polling booth at Boyal in the Assembly segment on polling day, where she alleged that her party polling agent was not allowed inside the booth and outsiders were trying to create trouble while Central forces were protecting them under instructions from the Home Ministry.
While the Chief Minister sat inside a polling booth at Boyal Primary School for almost an hour, passions ran high among supporters of both the Trinamool Congress and the BJP outside.
The EC slammed Ms. Banerjee for her conduct and wrote that as a poll candidate and CM she sought to weave a media narrative to mislead the voters. The EC said tensions outside the polling booth could have had an “adverse impact on law and order across West Bengal and may be some other States” while the voting was underway. It added, “there could not have been a greater misdemeanour”.
The EC warned Ms. Banerjee that it was examining the incident for violations under Section 131 and 123(2) of The Representation of the People Act, which deal with disorderly conduct outside the polling booth and attempts by a candidate to exert undue influence or interfere with free exercise of electoral right.
“There is no evidence at all to suggest that the BSF jawans who were deployed at the polling station indulged in any inappropriate behaviour. Moreover, the complaint that they did not allow the voters to go inside the booth is far from truth,” Election Commission of India secretary general Umesh Sinha wrote on April 3.
The letter called the Chief Minister’s allegations “factually incorrect, without any empirical evidence whatsoever and devoid of substance”.
The EC stated that TMC’s polling agent was assured that he would be escorted by the police and the sector officer of the booth, but he refused to come.
