A day ahead of the final phase of election on Sunday, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, saying \u201call evidences show\u201d that the BJP president Amit Shah\u2019s roadshow on May 14 was allowed withdrawing Section 144 in the area by the new Kolkata Police commissioner who was appointed by the Election Commission.<\/p>\n
She alleged that \u201cthe roadshow was itself a deliberate, intentional and a criminal conspiracy to vandalise the culture and heritage of Kolkata and West Bengal and also to defame the West Bengal government and its people\u201d.<\/p>\n
The EC had, on April 5, transferred Kolkata police commissioner Anuj Sharma and appointed Rajesh Kumar in his place.<\/p>\n
On May 14, the BJP president Amit Shah held a roadshow in Kolkata in which a clash ensued and several saffron-clad men were seen on videos entering the Vidyasagar College premises and breaking the bust of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar. The BJP has denied the vandalism was done by its men.<\/p>\n
The Bengal CM in her letter today, requested the CEC to ensure the final phase of election takes place peacefully in the state \u201cwithout any undue interference\u201d of the Centre or the ruling party in power. She said that there were a number of \u201cillegal, unconstitutional and biased decisions\u201d during the election \u201cbecause of undue influence\u201d of the Centre and the ruling party at the Centre, and not just the state administration and its officers, but the common people have been \u201charassed and attacked in various manner\u201d.<\/p>\n
Banerjee also made allegations against the two retired officers appointed by the EC for Bengal as Special Observers for Bengal, which she said was \u201cnot in accordance with the law\u201d. She said that these two officers have been partisan and followed instructions of the Centre and the ruling party at the Centre repeatedly, and despite taking it up with the EC, nothing was done about it.<\/p>\n
She requested the CEC to \u201ckindly protect democratic institutions and federal structure\u201d of the country and to respect opposition parties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The roadshow was deliberate, intentional and a criminal conspiracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":5542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-bengal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5541"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=5541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}