Bengal BJP Workers Scuffle With Police During Protest Near SEC Office

BJP activists scuffled with police during a protest in front of the State Election Commission office here on Thursday, accusing the poll panel of not performing its role to ensure free and fair elections, and turning a blind eye to alleged attacks by ruling TMC on opposition workers during filing of nomination papers and campaigning for the upcoming civic polls.

Several party members, including youth wing BJYM's state president Indranil Khan, the party's South Kolkata district president Sanghamitra Choudhury, and party leaders Kalyan Choubey and Priyanka Tibrewal, were taken into preventive custody during the agitation since noon. BJP activists, who tried to hold the demonstration thrice, were whisked away by police into prison vans as soon as they started assembling and raising slogans. "Police isn't losing any time to bundle us into vans to crush our peaceful protest but they don't act when our candidates are prevented by TMC from filing their nomination papers, or when our campaigning is disrupted," Khan said while being forced into a police vehicle. The protesters were detained as they threatened to break the cordon and barge into the SEC office, a police officer said.

On Wednesday, the last day of filing nominations for the February 27 polls in 108 municipalities of the state, there were allegations that BJP candidates were prevented from filing nominations in Dinhata Municipality, while the TMC was declared an uncontested winner in the Sainthia and Budge Budge municipalities. BJP alleged that there was TMC's terror, while the ruling party in the state wondered whether the opposition has any organisation in those areas. TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that the BJP was staging a drama by holding these protests as it is destined to lose in all the civic bodies.

PTI Inputs