Author:
Publication: The Statesman
Date: April 18, 2003
It's official now.Figures dished
out by the state election commission today lent credence to Miss Mamata
Banerjee's statement that thousands of her party candidates had been prevented
from filing nominations for the panchayat polls.
Over the past few days, the Trinamul
chief had been saying that about 20,000 Trinamul and BJP candidates had
been forcibly prevented by CPI-M men from filing nominations.
State election commission statistics
simply endorse Miss Banerjee's stand. Of the 58,357 panchayat seats, comprising
gram panchayats, panchayat samitis and zilla parishads, Trinamul Congress
and BJP have been able to file for only 39,297 seats, a shortfall of 19,060
seats which the Trinamul chief has attributed to CPI-M muscle-power. The
Trinamul has filed for 28,451 seats, while its ally, the BJP, is contesting
10,846 seats.
Having found her apprehension turning
right, Miss Banerjee told The Statesman tonight : "The Left Front government
has lost the moral sanction to rule. Such uncontested victories show how
democracy has been trampled by the CPI-M with brute force. I fear a spate
of withdrawals be cause of red terror. It's indeed a black day for Bengal''.
Mr Anil Biswas, CPI-M state secretary,
told The Statesman that allegations made by Trinamul Congress, Congress
and BJP "is a deliberate campaign to make CPI-M activists complacent about
their victory and also create among people an aversion to the electoral
process.''
The state election commissioner
till date has no such information that opposition are being forcefully
held back from filing nominations though the chief minister was aware that
oppositions are being barred from filing their nominations by his own party
men.
Mr Ajay Sinha, state election commissioner,
said that candidates of both ruling and opposition parties by and large
were able to file their nominations peacefully.
Mr Sinha said about 60,000 nominations
were filed yesterday, on the last day of filing nominations, among 1.25
lakh nominations filed altogether.Interestingly, the number of filing nominations
increased only after the chief minister had appealed to his party men on
Saturday that opposition party nominees should be allowed to file their
poll papers.
He said that there are 49,144 gram
panchayat seats in 3,220 gram panchayats , 8,500 seats in 329 panchayat
samitis and 713 zilla parishad seats in 17 zilla parishads.
This time, no panchayat election
will be held in Darjeeling district. When asked how Congress, Trinamul
Congress and BJP failed to file nominations in about 20,000 seats, Mr Sinha
said: "I've no such information that oppositions were forcefully stopped
from filing nominations.''
Mr Tathagatha Roy, BJP state president,
said: "If Mr Sinha has said that, he is not fit to be a state election
commissioner and I will say that Mr Sinha's utterances are baseless.''
Moreover, he said: "Whenever we
receive such complaints, I personally ask the respective district magistrates
and SPs to take necessary action and try to make conducive situation for
candidates to file their nominations.''
Mr Debabrata Basu, general secretary,
Pradesh Congress Committee, said: "In this panchayat election our candidates
were forcibly stopped from filing nomination. This is for the first time
we have taken police protection to file nominations. In previous panchayat
polls we faced CPI-M's atrocity on election day but this year they started
even from the first day of filing nomination.''
Asked if CPI-M candidates were declared
elected uncontested in three zilla prishad seats in West Midnapore, Mr
Sinha said: "I've joined this office two months ago. I do not know about
1998 election results.'' Asked whether postponement of polls is possible,
as suggested by Mr Murali Monohar Joshi, Union minister of Human Resource
Development, Mr Sinha said: "We will have to print few lakh ballot papers
and for that we require some time. So it is not possible to postpone the
panchayat polls right now.''
