Bengal Panchayat Poll Violence: BJP Alleges Deliberate Non-Deployment of Central Forces

Kolkata: The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal has accused the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) of deliberately not deploying central forces during the recent panchayat elections. BJP’s national vice president, Dilip Ghosh, claimed that the absence of central forces in sensitive areas led to widespread violence and prevented people from freely exercising their voting rights. Ghosh alleged that the forces were assigned tasks such as patrolling highways instead of being stationed at polling booths, and they were deployed only after instances of violence had already occurred.

In response, the TMC stated that even if the central forces were deployed, there was no guarantee that violence would have been averted. TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh referred to incidents during the 2021 assembly polls where four individuals were allegedly killed by central forces in Cooch Behar. He highlighted that violence occurred in only a small number of booths out of the total 61,000, with the majority of casualties being TMC workers.

Official reports indicate that fifteen people lost their lives during the violent incidents that marred the panchayat elections in West Bengal. The Border Security Force (BSF) Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of South Bengal Frontier, SS Guleria, dismissed allegations that the central forces failed to provide security cover. Guleria explained that the BSF provided troops to the State Election Commission (SEC) for deployment and maintained that polling was peaceful wherever central forces were present. He added that they had requested a list of sensitive booths from the SEC but did not receive it, leaving the local administration to decide on the deployment.