TMC demands high-level probe into 'attack' on CM Mamata Banerjee

TMC MPs Saugata Roy, Satabdi Roy and Kakoli Ghosh after meeting the EC in New Delhi on Friday. PIC/PTI

A TMC delegation met the Election Commission (EC) on Friday and demanded a high-level probe into an alleged attack on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram and claimed it was not an "unfortunate incident", but a conspiracy.

The six-member delegation of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) met the full EC team, including Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora, for over an hour and submitted a memorandum to it, highlighting how BJP leaders in West Bengal had threatened the chief minister through tweets and other remarks.

"Injuries to Banerjee in Nandigram were not a result of an unfortunate incident but that of a conspiracy. The events leading up to the attempt on her life leave no doubt that the attack was part of a deep-rooted conspiracy," TMC MP Saugata Roy said after meeting the EC. In the memorandum, the TMC has made allegations against Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP candidate from Nandigram in the upcoming state Assembly polls.

"When an attempt was made on the life of Ms Banerjee, in which she was grievously hurt, to cover up the attack, eye-witnesses were planted, illustratively, eye-witnesses Chittaranjan Das and Debabrata Das, who testified that Ms Banerjee's car was hit against an iron pillar, are associates of Suvendu Adhikari, BJP candidate from Nandigram," the memorandum says.

The party said the BJP's state president Dilip Ghosh had uploaded a caricature depicting that she would be hit at Nandigram. Around the same time, numerous complaints were filed by the BJP with the EC seeking immediate removal of the then police chief and IGP of West Bengal, it said.

Theatre actor dropped from play after joining BJP
A theatre group in West Bengal, known for its productions on socio-economic themes, has dropped an artiste from a play after the actor joined the BJP. Saurav Palodhi, whose ‘Ghum Nei', an adaptation of the Utpal Dutt classic on the present political situation of the country through the prism of Left ideology, had posted on his official Facebook account that the artiste, Kaushik Kar, was removed from the production for joining the saffron party. Kar, had been invited by Palodhi's group ‘Ichcheymoto' in 2019, to play a character whose name had a reference to the victim who was lynched in 2015 Dadri case on suspicion of eating beef. "We are removing Kaushik Kar from ‘Ghum Nei' with immediate effect because he has joined the BJP. There can be no place for communal elements in a play for the working class."

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