West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday urged the political parties in the Opposition to come together and demand the return of the ballot papers of the elections.
“I appeal to all Opposition parties that there should be a fact-finding committee so that we can find faults with this kind of elections,” Ms. Banerjee told journalists here. She said she would provide her inputs to the committee and the Opposition parties too should do so.
The Trinamool Congress chairperson said a lot of EVMs had to be changed due to technical glitches on the day of the polls and nobody was sure about them. She alleged that the BJP had used money, muscle and media to win the elections and she would not accept the mandate reflected through the EVMs.
“The BJP managed only 18 seats not 23 as they are claiming... And that also because of the support of the Left Front parties. But we have managed to increase 4% of our vote share.”
The Chief Minister, who held a meeting with the party functionaries, also said the MLAs and the party leaders would carry out a J an Sanjog Yatra from the Darjeeling hills to the Bay of Bengal.
Vidyasagar bust to be reinstalled
Announcing a series of programmes for the party, she said her government would reinstall the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar at the Vidyasagar College on June 11. The bust was destroyed during vandalism at BJP president Amit Shah’s rally on May 14. Ms. Banerjee said a full statue of Vidyasagar would be installed along with that of Asutosh Mookerjee at the University of Calcutta. She said the administration would deal firmly with those who tried to capture the party offices of other parties.
