The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday directed the state government to suspend four officers of the Kolkata Police, including a divisional deputy commissioner, and initiate disciplinary proceedings against them over chaos outside a nomination centre, where senior Suvendu Adhikari and other BJP candidates filed their papers a day earlier amid clashes and alleged slogan-shouting by ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers. This came after Shah addressed a rally at Hazra, barely 300 metres from the chief minister’s Kalighat residence. (ANI)
“The ECI has directed the state government to suspend four officers and initiate disciplinary proceedings against them – Siddhartha Dutta, deputy commissioner-II of South Division, Priyankar Chakraborty, officer-in-charge (OC) of Alipore police station, Chandi Charan Banerjee, additional OC, and Saurabh Chatterjee, sergeant,” said a senior EC official.
Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday accompanied Adhikari—who is contesting against chief minister Mamata Banerjee from the Bhabanipur seat—along with Rashbehari candidate Swapan Dasgupta, Ballygunge seat nominee Shatarupa, and Santosh Pathak from Chowringhee to the Alipore Survey Building, where they filed their papers. This came after Shah addressed a rally at Hazra, barely 300 metres from the chief minister’s Kalighat residence.
Clashes broke out after local TMC workers gathered on both sides of the road and shouted anti-BJP slogans, allegedly targeting Adhikari, who defeated Banerjee in Nandigram in 2021. TMC supporters had allegedly installed loudspeakers around the Survey Building and played the party’s campaign songs.