Mamata Banerjee alleges BJP rigged counting in 177 Bengal seats

Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday (June 2) claimed that the BJP "rigged" vote counting across 177 of West Bengal's 294 Assembly constituencies and won in the recently held state elections.

Banerjee pledged her unwavering support to TMC workers amid a wave of arrests targeting party leaders on corruption and extortion charges, along with reported attacks on ground-level workers following the party's electoral defeat.

Assures INDIA bloc convergence

At a day-long sit-in protest in central Kolkata against post-poll violence on TMC members, Banerjee announced that Opposition parties would soon roll out a unified national action plan against the BJP. She confirmed that the INDIA bloc leaders would be convening in Delhi within the coming days to finalise a coordinated country-wide strategy ahead of the alliance's scheduled meeting next week.

Banerjee reached the dharna site at Esplanade Y-channel after the TMC's appeal to hold the protest at the adjacent Rani Rashmoni Road was turned down by the Kolkata Police.

In a post on X, Banerjee called the sit-in protest a “programme against post-poll violence, eviction of hawkers without rehabilitation, irregularities/ fraud in the NEET examination, and the vindictive actions of the BJP government.”

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"We were not permitted to hold our programme at the place we requested. At the alternative site, the police did not allow us to set up a stage or use microphones," Banerjee said, while addressing the crowd using a hand-held megaphone.

“We will move court if other parties are allowed to hold political programmes at the venue where we were denied permission to protest, or if they are allowed to hold meetings with microphones. Law cannot be imposed with discrimination,” she added.

Allegations of police intimidation

The protest was marked by intermittent chaos, with TMC workers shouting slogans amid the former chief minister's speech.

“Those who have arrived here, ignoring police intimidation, should know that the men in uniform are being used by the BJP dispensation to do things they are not supposed to do. Threatening TMC workers is not part of their job profile,” Banerjee alleged.

The TMC supremo was seen accompanied by the party's old guards—Firhad Hakim, Madan Mitra, Kalyan Banerjee, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Chandrima Bhattacharya, and Dola Sen—amid the conspicuous absence of most of the fresh faces who won the Assembly seats on TMC tickets.

The party supremo, however, asserted that the dharna, to protest Saturday's attack on her nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee, alleged post-poll violence, and hawker eviction, will continue till the evening as scheduled.

'Modi has left Bengal in hands of anti-socials'

Banerjee alleged that the recent assault on Abhishek at Sonarpur was carried out in a planned manner.

“The BJP had smuggled in its workers from before, fed them and even tutored them how to act and talk. Had a TMC worker not supplied Abhishek with a helmet, the injury from the stone hurled at him could have turned fatal,” she alleged.

She further accused that the private hospitals where Abhishek was taken to were brought under “immense pressure” of the Suvendu Adhikari establishment to not allow admission to the injured leader.

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“Modi has left Bengal in the hands of anti-socials and bulldozer-happy politicians, pushing the state into darkness,” she said.

Speaking on the controversy over signatures of TMC MLAs endorsing Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as the Leader of Opposition, Banerjee maintained that the MLAs had signed the party’s meet attendance book in accordance with the decision taken at the meeting concerned.

“The Assembly Speaker should have conducted forensic tests of the signatures if he had confusion about their authenticity. The BJP is playing a dirty game,” she said.