KOLKATA: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday lodged a complaint with the Election Commission stating that the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC Government was employing ‘civic police volunteers’ in Friday’s byelection to the Bongaon Lok Sabha seat.
“The Commission has strictly stated that civic police volunteers should not be deployed for poll duties. However, the state administration was using them for route marches to terrorise the voters,” Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaiprakash Majumdar said.
“We have lodged a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer since we fear that TMC volunteers would be misused,” he added.
A pall of unease has settled over areas along the Indo-Bangladesh border of the constituency after campaigning for the bypoll came to an end.
Predicting that Bharatiya Janata Party nominee Subrata Thakur would win the election, Majumdar said, “The three Ms will determine the outcome. Mouta votes, which is around 35 per cent, Muslim votes comprising 40 per cent and the role of TMC national secretary Mukul Roy.” Mukul, who is a Rajya Sabha MP, is the main poll manager of the party, but he addressed only five public meetings in Bongaon.
After the CBI quizzed him on January 30 in connection with the chit fund scam, Roy had spoken against the official stand of the TMC, which was opposed to the CBI probe into the scandal. However, Mamata did not initiate any disciplinary action against him. Interestingly, Mamata too did not address any public meeting in the constituency .