Violence hits the 3rd phase of Bengal polls in Hooghly killing 2 and 5 candidates injured when BJP workers attacked TMC leader Sujata Khan Mondal when the BJP workers tried to block voters from voting.

TMC and BJP got into clashes amid polling in West Bengal on Tuesday.  Two people from different parties were killed and several others injured. Five candidates from different parties were attacked, with their vehicles damaged and polling agents flogged.

The BJP workers were allegedly stopping people from voting which led to the violence.  At Arandi village, which is around 20 km from Arambag town, Sujata Khan Mondal of TMC was attacked by a large group of BJP workers who first hurled bricks at her vehicle, then hit her brutally with bamboo poles lashing on her shoulders and hands.  This was when she tried to lead a group of Muslim women who the BJP workers were trying to stop from voting.

Due to this attack, Sujata Khan Mondal’s security guard was forced to take out his revolver to threaten the mob while he and other TMC workers dragged her to safety and had to flee for their lives through the paddy fields. Sujata was rescued by police and party workers hours later.

Five men were later arrested. She was also attacked at Dihibagnan and Paisara, where bricks hurled at her car smashed the windshield. At Khanakul, also in Hooghly, TMC candidate Nazbul Karim allegedly came under attack while in Uluberia North, another TMC candidate Nirmal Maji was allegedly attacked by BJP workers with sticks and iron rods at a poll booth. BJP candidates also didn’t escape assaults.

The party’s Uluberia South candidate, actor Papiya Adhikary, was allegedly slapped by some TMC workers when she went to meet some injured party workers at Uluberia hospital. Two men were arrested for the assault.

Sporadic clashes were also reported from multiple constituencies in Howrah and South 24 Parganas, two of the three districts that went to polls, but the nucleus of the violence was in Hooghly.

At Falta in South 24 Parganas, BJP candidate Bidhan Panrui claimed bricks were hurled at him when he tried to enter a polling booth. While cars of multiple candidates were attacked, the ones belonging to the polling agent of BJP’s Tarakeshwar candidate Swapan Dasgupta were most damaged.

In Hooghly, the day began on a bad note with BJP worker Dipak Adak of Krishnagunj in Goghat claiming that TMC goons had killed his 43-year-old mother in a pre-dawn attack. TMC denied its involvement in the murder.  Two men were later arrested in this case.

Despite section 144 imposed in the 31 constituencies of Bengal, and heavy armed security forces, violence erupts in Bengal during this bloody election and Bengal is the biggest battleground in India during elections 2021.

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