Peace prevails in Panskura, Haldia

3 June 2012

biswabrata goswami
HALDIA, 3 JUNE: Barring stray incidents of violence, polling at Haldia and Panskura civic bodies in East Midnapore ended peacefully amid tight security today. As the election gathered tempo, where the ruling alliances ~ Congress and Trinamul ~ contested separately for the first time after last year’s Assembly poll, a large number of voters, ignoring the muggy weather, exercised their franchise.
District Magistrate Parwez Ahmed Siddiqui said 87 per cent of the 117,747 voters in Haldia and 83 per cent of the 34,740 voters in Panskura exercised their franchise to elect their representatives.
Voting for both the municipalities started at 7 am in all the 148 booths in Haldia and 43 booths in Panskura which continued beyond the 3 pm deadline, Mr Siddiqui said. Though, initially, there were technical glitches in two electronic voting machines (EVMs), they were immediately replaced, he said. Mr Siddiqui said polling was peaceful barring an incident at ward 18 in Haldia where two groups got involved in a clash over an altercation which led to injuries of two persons. Police had to resort to a lathi-charge to disperse the mob and bring the situation under control, he added. The Congress and CPI-M alleged that the polls were far from being free and fair and accused the Trinamul Congress of unleashing a reign of terror on their activists. The former chairperson of Haldia municipality and CPI-M leader, Mrs Tamalika Panda Seth, alleged: “We are disappointed the way polls were held. Our party agents were physically assaulted and removed from booths by Trinamul workers. EPICs were snatched away from 37 of our supporters from ward number 11 when they queued up in front of a booth near the IOC gate. There were widespread irregularities. We will lodge a complaint with the state election commission.”  The Congress has also accused the TMC of harassing its candidates in Haldia and Panskura municipalities and said the polling was not free and fair Complaining of irregularities, Mr Niranjan Sihi, a CPI-M leader in Panskura and former sabhadhipati of East Midnapore zilla parishad, said: “TMC workers unleashed a reign of terror at our party’s stronghold like wards 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 17 in Panskura. They carried out door-to-door visits and threatened our agents and electors with dire consequences.” Mr Sihi said the presence of “outsiders” in some wards of Haldia and Panskura municipalities has obviously hampered free and fair election. Rubbishing the allegations, Mr Subhendu Adhikari, the Trinamul MP from Tamluk, said the party would sweep the polls in the two municipalities.