Election-related violence continues in West Bengal

KOLKATA: With three election-related deaths and incidents of clashes reported from West Bengal in the last six phases, the state has hit the headlines once again for political violence. Central forces have till now, according to a source, recorded 337 incidents of major violence and malpractices. The maximum cases of violations were recorded during the third and sixth phases.

The sixth phase topped with a total of 167 incidents across all constituencies. The report was submitted to the Union home ministry after it sought ‘poll violence’ data from the state police.

In the last six phases, two BJP workers and a Trinamool Congress worker were killed allegedly during pre-poll and poll-day violence.

According to the report by the central agencies, maximum incidents of violence were reported from Coochbehar, Alipurduar , East Midnapore, Murshidabad , North 24 Parganas and Howrah.

A senior police official said central forces had to resort to firing at four places in this election season. At one place, they had to fire around 65 rounds to save a booth allegedly under attack, said a police source.

In an unprecedented decision, the EC had ordered deployment of about 770 companies of central forces during the sixth phase of elections, highest in the country.

According to police reports, West Bengal witnessed at least 14 deaths during the Lok Sabha elections in 2014, with around 1,166 incidents of recorded violence.