Saffron BJP may also challenge poll results in some seats in WB: Dilip Ghosh
NEW DELHI : West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, who has been in Delhi since Tuesday, met Union Home Minister Amit Shah for the second time in 48 hours. In Thursday’s meet, he is believed to have briefed the minister about the the law and order situation in the state, where several incidents of violence were reported after the assembly election.
“This is an occasion for us to believe in democracy, constitution, rule of law. I appeal to the bureaucracy and the police to confine to their code of conduct and regulations. Such kind of post-poll violence is worst seen since Independence,” Mr Dhankar told reporters today after his meeting with Mr Shah. The meeting with Mr Shah comes amid the Governor’s feud with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over a range of issues. Over the past few weeks, Mr Dhankhar has raised concerns on the alleged incidents of political violence in West Bengal.
Mr Dhankar had sent a report on the violence to the Centre soon after the Bengal polls. Before his Delhi visit, he had slammed Ms Banerjee over her handling of the violence. Ms Banerjee’s government said the post-poll violence was “somewhat unabated” when the Election Commission was in charge of law and order. The cabinet restored order once the oath ceremony was over, it said.
he alleged deterioration of the law and order in Bengal is a point that has been repeatedly articulated by Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar as well. On Saturday, Dhankhar, who is in Delhi, fired another round at the state government. “We cannot compromise with democracy, Constitution and rule-of-law. We cannot live in a democracy if people, in order to live in their own house and run their own small business, have to pay an extortion fee,” Dhankhar said in Delhi.
Dhankhar, who has been in Delhi since Wednesday, has met Union home minister Amit Shah at least twice apart from meetings with President Ram Nath Kovind, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and other Union ministers. During his trip to the national capital, Mr Dhankar, 70, met President Ram Nath Kovind and ministers, including Prahlad Joshi and Prahlad Singh Patel. He also met senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. The Calcutta High Court Friday directed Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to form a committee for examining all cases of alleged human rights violations in the post-poll violence in Bengal. A five-judge bench of the high court heard a bunch of petitions alleging post-poll violence in the state.
Meanwhile, the saffron BJP may file election petitions to challenge election results of seats lost by its candidates by a wafer-thin margin, the party’s state president Dilip Ghosh said on Saturday, days after West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and four Trinamool Congress leaders filed similar petitions in the Calcutta high court. “Our legal cell is exploring all options and where the petition could be filed. We are also planning to file Election Petitions. We have identified the seats. Our lawyers are taking preparations,” said Dilip Ghosh.
Mamata Banerjee, who lost the fiercely fought battle in Nandigram to the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari in May, had announced her decision to file the petition minutes after the Election Commission rejected her request for a recount after declaring her defeat. She filed her petition on Thursday. The following day, four more Trinamool Congress candidates filed their petitions against the results declared in Balarampur, Goghat, Moyna and Bongaon Dakshin constituencies, four of the 77 seats that had gone to the BJP. West Bengal reports 2,788 new Covid-19 cases, 58 deaths
Ghosh first hinted at the BJP’s plan to challenge the election results on Friday when he underlined that the option exercised by the Trinamool Congress was open to the BJP also. But even after that the TMC moved court. They have the right. We would all have to abide by the court orders. In the same way we can also move court. There are certain seats which the BJP lost by a narrow margin. Let the court decide,” Ghosh told reporters on Friday.
To be sure, the BJP’s performance, irrespective of its ambitious target of 200 seats, won just three seats and a 10.2% vote share in the previous 2016 assembly elections. In the 2021 elections, the BJP ended up with a 38% vote share, just 10 percentage points less than the Trinamool’s 48%.
The Trinamool Congress, which has accused the governor of promoting the BJP’s agenda, called Dhankhar’s attack “wild allegations to malign the state”.
(With Agency Inputs).
