Biman smells ‘conspiracy’ in lead-up to polls

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Kolkata/Malda: In a bid to mount pressure on the Election Commission, which is enforcing the election code on parties, CPM state secretary Biman Bose trained his guns on the EC, saying it was playing partisan. He alleged that the commission did not adhere to norms while hearing out political parties. “The commission came down to the city on March 19 to talk to all recognised political parties. While CPM, Forward Bloc and RSP were given 10 minutes each, the EC gave 40 minutes to Trinamool Congress. This is discriminatory,” Bose said. The CPM state secretary, however, did not come clear on whether his party was going to lodge a complaint against the EC. “We are yet to decide on it,” Bose said. The CPM state secretary pointed out how Trinamool was flouting the election code. “I am not going to any public meeting without a copy of the permission granted by police. But the Opposition doesn’t seem to care. I lodged a complaint on the Trinamool meeting in Nandigram. Mamata Banerjee held that meeting without permission,” Bose said. On Saturday, Malda CPM lodged a complaint against Pranab Mukherjee, the Congress candidate from Jangipur. Chief electoral officer Debashis Sen, however, rubbished the CPM charge. “The EC did not play partisan. Political parties were allotted 10 minutes each. But all of them exceeded their time limit,” Sen said, showing the media a copy of the EC letter sent to the Trinamool secretary on March 17, allotting the party a slot between 12 and 12.10 pm. Trinamool, on the other hand, complained to the EC, saying that finance minister Asim Dasgupta made tall promises in his vote-on-account speech, flouting EC norms. In Malda, CPM zonal secretary Dibya Shankar Shukul alleged that Mukherjee flouted the HC ban and the EC directive against use of microphones during examination, with the leader using loudspeakers in villages of Suti block on March 19. Biman saw a sinister design against the Left Front on the lines of the CIA model. “Some senior US consular staff in Kolkata recently held a meeting with Muslim members. There is no harm in holding consultations. US diplomats also come to our party office. But why did they have to go to a hotel? The consular staff could have held the meeting in its office itself. I know that an NGO member went to the US consulate after reaching Kolkata,” he said. Bose pointed to the recent meeting between the CIA chief and Union home minister P Chidambaram over the Indo-US collaboration to substantiate his argument. “A blueprint is under way, it seems, that will not serve the interests of Muslims,” he said. The CPM had thrown similar tantrums over the visit of a US consular staff to Nanoor in Birbhum ahead of the 2001 Assembly elections.