‘EC couldn’t take adequate punitive steps in Bengal’

Kolkata, May 12 (IANS) Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Sunday said the Election Commission (EC) has not been successful in taking adequate punitive steps in West Bengal to ensure free and fair polls.

Accusing Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress of trying to turn the state into a hub of "misrule and hooliganism", Naqvi said it was possible that the administration was not fully cooperating with the EC to maintain law and order during the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.

"We have repeatedly told the Election Commission that the Trinamool Congress and its goons are conspiring to defame the land of West Bengal by destroying its democratic fabric. We have told the EC to take strict action against such attempts," Naqvi said at the state BJP headquarters here.

"But we are sorry to say that the EC has not been successful in taking adequate punitive steps in order to curb these problems in West Bengal like they should have. It is possible that the local administration which has been hijacked by the fringe elements of the Trinamool Congress, is not fully cooperating with the electoral body," the senior BJP leader alleged.

Referring to the incidents of attacks on their party leaders and activists during the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha polls that was underway in the state on Sunday, Naqvi said they will submit a detailed report to the EC.

"Ramen Singh, a BJP booth President from Jhargram's Gopiballabpur was brutally murdered past midnight on Saturday. Our party candidate Bharati Ghosh has been repeatedly attacked by the Trinamool goons while our state party chief Dilip Ghosh has also come under attack," he said.

He said the BJP will demand the immediate arrest of the perpetrators apart from a repoll in a number of booths where the Trinamool have allegedly rigged the votes.