West Bengal panchayat elections 2018: Trinamool govt has failed, says Smriti Irani

West Bengal panchayat elections 2018: Union minister Smriti Irani today pilloried the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal for the violence over nomination filing for next month's panchayat polls, claiming that the Mamata Banerjee-led regime had "failed in the state". "The death of BJP leader Ajit Murmu only speaks of the law-and-order situation in the state. It speaks about how the TMC government has failed in the state...It shows how democracy is dying in Bengal," the information and broadcasting minister told a press conference at the state BJP office here. Murmu, a BJP worker, died on Wednesday after allegedly being thrashed by TMC workers in West Bengal's Bankura district. The incident took place outside the office of the block development officer in the Ranibandh area.

Irani said the entire country was well aware of the "ground reality in Bengal". Asked for her comment on the need for deployment of central forces for the rural polls, a demand made by the opposition parties, she said, "Being a central minister, I do not want to comment on the issue from this forum, but as a BJP worker, I would like to say that in a state, where a police official of the Asansol police commissionerate is not safe, what is happening in that state we all are aware of it."

The Deputy Commissioner (headquarters) of the Asansol-Durgapur police commissionerate, Arindam Dutta Chowdhury, was severely injured when agitators hurled a bomb at him near Ranigunj during clashes over Ram Navami processions. Several incidents of political clashes between the workers of the BJP and the TMC have been reported from various areas of the state in the last few days over filing of nominations for the coming rural polls. The violence that started since the beginning of the nomination filing on April 2 has claimed two lives in Malda and Bankura districts so far and left many injured.
Clashes between TMC and BJP activists were reported from the Nabagram area in Murshidabad district and Bankura today.

State BJP secretary Shyamapada Mondal was attacked allegedly by TMC supporters in Bankura in the afternoon, when he and his party workers were on their way to meet the district magistrate to submit a memorandum on the violence during filing of nominations for the panchayat polls. Mondal alleged that about 300 "TMC goons", who were present there in violation of section 144, CrPC clamped in the area, attacked the BJP delegation. The TMC leadership in the district dismissed the allegations as baseless.

Video footage aired on television news channels showed crude bombs being hurled at Nabagram in Murshidabad district and supporters of the TMC and the BJP clashing with each other. In the Nalhati area of Birbhum district, clashes broke out between the police and BJP supporters, when the latter defied the orders against taking out rallies or processions while filing nominations. The men in uniform used batons and fired rubber bullets to disperse the BJP supporters, a police official said.

A number of police personnel were injured when the BJP cadre hurled bricks at them and 25 workers of the saffron party were arrested in connection with the violence, the police said.