Published 18:28 IST, November 25th 2019
West Bengal by-polls for Seats, BJP Bengal VP and Candidate gets assaulted
Polls for three Assembly seats - Kharagpur Sadar, Karimpur, Kaliaganj in Bengal were held on Monday. However, one BJP candidate was thrashed near the booth.
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West Bengal went to by-elections for three Member of Legislative Assembly seats on Monday. The by-polls are being held for Kharagpur Sadar seat in West Midnapore district, Karimpur in Nadia and Kaliaganj in Uttar Dinajpur. These are presently held by the BJP, TMC and the Congress respectively.
Voting for three seats
The Kaliagang seat in Uttar Dinajpur, which was held by Congress, fell vacant after the sudden death of its holder. Congress leader Dhitashri Roy is also supported by CPM is fighting it out against Trinamool's Kamal Chandra Sarkar and BJP's Tapan Deb Sinha. As TMC's Mahua Moitra became the Member of Parliament, the Karimpur also fell vacant. Congress-backed CPM candidate Ghulam Rabi takes it on against BJP Bengal's Vice President Jay Prakash Majumdar and TMC’s Bimalendu Singha Roy. The Kharagpur Sadar seat went into by-polls as its holder Dilip Ghosh got elected to the Parliament a few months ago. Prem Chandra Jha of BJP will be against Chittaranjan Mandal of the Cong-CPM alliance and Pradip Sarkar of TMC. The Congress has gone into an electoral alliance with the Left Front for these by-polls.
As Kalianganj and Kharagpur's seat saw a decent turn out of voters and peaceful voting phase, Nadia's Karimpur saw violence during the voting. Bengal BJP vice president and party's candidate for the Karimpur assembly by-poll, Jay Prakash Majumdar was thrashed, kicked, and thrown into a ditch allegedly by a group of Trinamool Congress activists during the polling. The incident took place on Monday when voting for the Karimpur assembly by-election was on and Jay Prakash Majumdar was trying to enter a polling booth. Bengal police and Central forces were quick to ascertain the situation and lathi-charged the mob, thus dispersing them.
"TMC goons beat him (Jay Prakash) up. You cannot see this anywhere else in the country. There is no democracy in Bengal. We have spoken to the Election Commission regarding this. Mamata Banerjee is the leader behind all this. She wants to win somehow. She wants to win these 3 seats anyhow, but people have chosen the BJP", said BJP leader Mukul Roy. The BJP leader wrote to the EC asking for an immediate intervention in the situation.
Terming the entire incident as preconceived, Bengal Minister and TMC in-charge of Nadia district, Rajib Banerjee district said, "BJP's candidate wants to intimidate voters, hence he is entering voting premises. People are there to vote. BJP knows that it will lose. Hence all this drama".
15:34 IST, November 25th 2019