Bengal Minister blames BJP for deaths in panchayat poll violence

Kolkata, May 20: West Bengal Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee on Sunday accused the BJP of fomenting unrest during the recently concluded state rural body elections and indirectly held it responsible for the loss of lives in the poll violence.

“The BJP became aggressive to get results in the elections. They were involved in creating unrest in many places and bringing in people from outside to conduct attack on democracy,” Mukherjee said.

“Some of them have a history of violence. Many of our activists were killed during the election this year. We have to be more careful about this in future,” the Trinamool Congress leader said.

The state BJP leadership, however, refuted the allegations and said the minister was trying to hide his department’s failure by putting the blame on the BJP.

“These allegations are baseless. Everyone knows it was the ruling party that created a reign of terror during the rural elections. More than 20 people have died this time. The Panchayat minister cannot avoid his responsibility. People will not forgive him,” state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said.

“This violence is not just about this time. Even during the previous Panchayat polls in Bengal, hundreds of people have died. Where was the BJP at that time? This is a ploy to divert attention from the state government and the Panchayat department’s failure,” he alleged.IANS