Voters stand in queue at a polling station in Rejinagar constituency under Murshidabad district. (CEO West Bengal/X)
KOLKATA: The Bengal Congress on Tuesday demanded fresh polling in the Nandigram and Rejinagar assembly constituencies, alleging intimidation of voters, removal of its polling agents and widespread electoral malpractice during the bypolls.
Because that is an official procedure, but we are not hopeful of receiving justice from the poll body,” he said, we have lodged our complaints before the EC.
State Congress president Subhankar Sarkar alleged that party agents had been forcibly removed from polling booths in Rejinagar and claimed that several booths in Nandigram had been “captured” by workers of the ruling BJP. The Congress’s Rejinagar candidate Mohammad Abdullahil Kafi staged a sit-in outside the local police station, seeking cancellation of the polling and fresh elections, Sarkar said at a press conference at the party’s state headquarters, Bidhan Bhavan, in Kolkata. Later we found that Congress agents were roughed up and forced to leave from almost all the booths in Rejinagar,” Sarkar alleged. In Nandigram, Congress candidate Milan Pradhan alleged that the polling process was marred by intimidation of voters and alleged bias by the police and security forces. “The Commission is also working for the government. Gyanesh Kumar is actually Vanish Kumar, who is controlled by the BJP headquarters.
“Our Rejinagar candidate has begun a sit-in before the local PS protesting the forcible eviction of our agents from over a hundred booths in that constituency. He claimed that the party had alerted the Election Commission on Monday night about an alleged conspiracy to rig the election, purportedly involving the inspector-in-charge of the Rejinagar police station and officials at different levels of the administration.