Election Commission’s Bengal trip surprising: Karat

KOLKATA - Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat Sunday termed the upcoming visit of a team of Election Commission (EC) officials to West Bengal as “unprecedented” and “unusual” and criticized the union home minister for turning a blind eye to the “Maoist-Trinamool Congress nexus”.

“The election commission of India has taken an unprecedented step of sending a team which consists of the CEO (chief electoral officer) of Bihar and police officials from outside state. We do not think this will contribute to the capacity of the state administration to organise free and fair elections and maintain law and order,” Karat said while addressing media persons after the conclusion of the two-day politburo meeting here.

A team consisting of the chief electoral officer of Bihar and senior police officers from other districts has been sent by Election Commission of India to visit the state and its violence prone districts. The team is scheduled to reach the city Sunday evening.

“We don’t know the reason for this unusual visit. As I said, that despite all efforts to instigate violence and to target Left Front government, we are confident that people of the state will recognize that this kind of violence is being resorted for narrow political interests,” said Karat.

Karat also took a dig at union Home Minister P. Chidambaram for turning a blind eye to the Trinamool Congress-Maoist “nexus”.

“The root cause of violence in the state is collaboration between the Trinamool Congress and Maoists. There has been mounting evidence of this collaboration. Surprisingly, the union home minister seems to diverge from this main cause of violence and make allegations against the CPI-M,” said Karat.

“We, the CPI-M and Left Front, have lost 365 supporters in this region. The union home minister is turning a blind eye to this. We want end to all sources of violence in the state,” said Karat.