West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Sunday wrote to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, pleading for her "urgent intervention to stop the intimidation and abduction of elected opposition candidates prior to the formation of the three-tier Panchayat boards," news agency ANI reported.
In his letter to CM, Chowdhury claimed that wherever INC candidates have won in the panchayat polls, "police/political leaders/goons" are threatening them with murder and other accusations thus pressuring them to switch allegiance to Bengal’s ruling party.
Highlighting Trinamool Congress’ intolerance for political opposition, Chowdhury writes: "The insatiable thirst of the activists of TMC party for more power and lucre is being instrumental in shaping the concept of the monocratic rule in Bengal. In course of time, this proclivity among ruling party workers and leaders would be reflected in the reduction of the space for the opposition to a bare minimum. Besides, there is no reason to dishonor the people's mandate by compelling the elected opposition candidates sometimes at gun points and sometimes by implicating them into faked up cases, to join the ruling party in West Bengal. It also deserves mention that one person at Nabagram was larruped to death by the police. Where shall people go for safety when the police turn to be killers?"
Chowdhury further writes: "Is this a civilized way of winning elections in the State of West Bengal where you are the Honorable Chief Minister for more than a decade!"
The Trinamool got a 51.14 percent vote share and an overwhelming majority of the 63,229 gramme panchayat, 9,730 panchayat samiti, and 928 zilla parishad seats in the recently held panchayat polls.