Trinamool accuses ECI of selective vehicle checks of party leaders ahead of polls
Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Tuesday accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of issuing specific instructions to all Flying Surveillance Teams (FSTs) deployed for the forthcoming two-phase West Bengal Assembly elections to check the vehicles of all TMC leaders and their close relatives, with the sole exception of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The vehicle check also includes Trinamool’s General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee and his wife Rujira Narula Banerjee.
Trinamool on Tuesday released a screenshot of a WhatsApp instruction allegedly given by the ECI to all FSTs that, with the sole exception of the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the vehicles of all Trinamool Congress leaders should be checked.
According to the screenshot, the Election Commission expressed apprehension about the possible transportation of money under the guise of medical and blood donation camps and accordingly instructed intensified checking, covering TMC leaders, state cabinet members and their relatives.
However, IANS could not independently verify the authenticity of the WhatsApp message shared by the TMC with a section of the media. Till the filing of this report, there was no response from either the ECI or the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.
Trinamool Congress has claimed that the ECI has deliberately given such instructions to satisfy the politics of vendetta pursued by the BJP.
However, questions have already surfaced over the authenticity of the WhatsApp message screenshot released by the Trinamool Congress. First of all, in the message, the name of the Trinamool Congress General Secretary had been spelt differently. At one place, it had been spelt as “Avisek”, and at another place it had been spelt as “Abhishek”.
Additionally, the surname of the concerned person is not mentioned in the WhatsApp message screenshot, leaving room for speculation whether the Trinamool Congress general secretary had been referred to here or not.