Trinamool Meets President, Blames BJP For Murders Of Party Supporters

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress today complained to President Ram Nath Kovind that the BJP was "involved" in the murder of five Trinamool workers in West Bengal in panchayat poll-linked violence. 

"Five Trinamool supporters have been killed," said Trinamool lawmaker Sudip Bandopadhyay after meeting the President. "We took their family members to the President so they could tell him their woes," he added.

BJP leader Raju Banerjee contested, "They are giving the President wrong facts, which is very disrespectful of the post." 

In a four-page letter to the President, the Trinamool said it is not true that the opposition could not file nomination in the panchayat polls. "BJP spread rumours. More than 96,000 opposition nominations have been filed," the letter read. 

The Trinamool went on to write, "Few incidents, however, did take place. These have been over-projected through one particular 'sponsored' media group to tarnish the image of the government which has worked wonders in West Bengal after being voted to power in 2011."

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The Opposition is up in arms on the issue. CPM leader Biman Bose, on a sit-in protest against panchayat poll violence at the Lenin statue in central Kolkata, said, "The Trinamool seems to think that if you keep repeating a lie, it will one day be accepted as the truth. But people are beginning to see the truth."

Among other points made by the Trinamool in the letter to the President is that Dildar Khan, killed in poll-related violence in Birbhum on April 23, was a Trinamool supporter and that he was killed while going with his wife to file her nomination as a Trinamool candidate at Suri.

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Dildar Khan was shot dead when he was going, according to eyewitnesses, in a BJP procession to file the nomination, not of his wife but of his sister-in-law on a BJP ticket.

This was also what Dildar Khan's father had said hours after his son's death. BJP claims he later changed his statement under Trinamool pressure. Sitting next to Birbhum Trinamool chief Anubrata Mondal, the father said his original statement was made under BJP pressure and his son was a Trinamool supporter.