Voting again today at 604 booths in West Bengal: Election Commission’s decision after violence; 16 people were killed on election day, July 8.

In the polling held on July 8, ballot boxes were looted at some places and bombed at some places. 16 people had died during the violence.

Voting for Panchayat elections will be held again today in 604 booths of 4 districts of West Bengal. These include Malda, Murshidabad, Purulia, Birbhum, Jalpaiguri and South 24 Parganas. This information has been given by the State Election Commission. An official said that only those booths where incidents of ballot box tampering and violence were witnessed would be re-polled.

In fact, out of 73,887 gram panchayat seats, polling was held on 64,874 on Saturday. During this, reports of violence came from different areas. Booth looting, tearing of ballot papers, burning of ballot papers and hurling of bombs were reported from several areas. Murshidabad has the maximum number of 175 booths in the elections to be held today, followed by Malda with 112 booths.

Sixteen people were murdered in six districts on election day. With this, the number of people who lost their lives in a month went up to 35. Since the announcement of elections on 8 June, 19 people had lost their lives till 7 July.

After voting on July 8, miscreants set a police vehicle on fire in Murshidabad.

BSF bid – Police force was sufficient, it was not used
BSF DIG SS Guleria said that the State Election Commission gave the number of sensitive booths only on 7th June. His location or any other information was not given. 59 thousand troops of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) and Armed Police of 25 states were also present here, but it could not be used properly.

The state government had told that there were only 4834 sensitive booths on which CAPFs were deployed, but in reality there were many more sensitive police booths. The deployment of BSF was done only on the demand of the local administration.

Election commissioner said – adequate security force was not deployed in time
Regarding the allegations of spreading violence during the elections, Bengal Election Commissioner Rajeev Sinha said that it was the responsibility of the district administration to control the crowd during the elections. He alleged that the central force could not deploy companies in Bengal in time.

One person was injured in the bombing by TMC workers at Jamirgachi in Bhangad block of South 24 Parganas.

Shubhendu Adhikari said – TMC goons and police killed in connivance
Leader of the Opposition and BJP MLA from Nandigram Shubhendu Adhikari blamed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the killings in the panchayat elections. He said, due to the connivance of TMC goons and police, so many killings took place. CBI and NIA should investigate this matter.

Shubhendu Adhikari said- ‘This election was not taking place, votes were being looted and deaths were taking place. There was violence and arson. There was talk of deploying central security forces in the elections. Where were they during the violence? Accusing the state government, Shubhendu said that CCTV monitoring was claimed but CCTV cameras were not installed anywhere.

Ballot papers were set ablaze after polling booths were vandalized in Coochbehar.

16 people died in six districts

TMC: Two party workers were killed at Beldanga in Murshidabad and Tufanganj in Cooch Behar on Saturday morning, while a relative of a TMC leader was killed at Manik Chowk in Malda. A total of 9 workers have been killed so far.

Congress: Congress worker Yasmin SK was murdered in Rejinagar of Murshidabad.

CPI(M): Rajibul Haque, a 32-year-old CPI(M) worker, was shot dead in East Burdwan on Friday night. He died on Saturday morning at the NRS Medical College in Kolkata. There are reports of death of three CPI(M) workers.

BJP: BJP’s polling agent Madhav Vishwas was shot dead on Saturday morning in Cooch Behar’s Falimari.

ISF: ISF worker killed in clash with TMC in Haringhata area of ​​Nadia district. The deceased has been identified as Saidul Shaikh, 48.

Independent: Abdullah, the booth agent of an independent candidate, was killed at Peergacha in North 24 Parganas.

Candidates were elected unopposed on 9,013 seats
On 8 July, polling was held in 64,874 out of 73,887 gram panchayat seats in West Bengal. In the remaining 9,013 seats, the candidates were elected unopposed. The maximum number of 8,874 candidates who were elected unopposed are from the Trinamool Congress. The results of the panchayat elections will come on July 11.

Even after the deployment of Central Forces in the state, there were reports of violence from different areas. Incidents of booth looting, ballot paper tearing, ballot paper burning were witnessed from many areas. A youth ran away with a ballot box in Hazrahat village of Mathbhanga-1 block of Cooch Behar.

In a village of Cooch Behar, a young man ran away with the ballot box.

Shah sought a report from the state government regarding incidents of violence
On Saturday, Home Minister Amit Shah had sought a report from the state government regarding the incidents of violence. He had also spoken to BJP State President Sukant Mazumdar and inquired about the workers. At the same time, BSF had written a letter to the Election Commission saying that they were not given correct information about sensitive booths.

Polling booths in Coochbehar were vandalized and ballot papers were set on fire.

ISF’s Naushad Siddiqui said – TMC wants to win elections by taking lives of people
Bhaskar’s reporter Akshay Bajpai spoke to Naushad Siddiqui, the lone ISF MLA, about the violence. He said that from the day the nominations started in my assembly, TMC people started putting pressure on the general public.

He said, TMC goons bombed where we live on the night of July 7 as well. Those people know that if the common man casts more votes then he will vote against the government, so they were creating such an atmosphere that people could not vote.

TMC’s local leaders take cut money, so common people have now decided that they will not vote for them. If this happens, then the livelihood of the leaders associated with the ruling party will stop. After losing the election in Bhangar, TMC now wants to win the panchayat in its favor, even if it means taking someone’s life.