Mukul Roy urges EC to ensure fair polls in Hills

TNN | Apr 14, 2016, Jalpaiguri: Requesting for a free and fair polls in the Hills, Trinamool leader Mukul Roy asked the EC to ensure that people there could get a chance to participate in the elections. "Mamata Banerjee has re-established democracy in the Hills. But though we have fielded candidates, people there do not get a fair chance to participate in the polls due to intimidation. It is up to the EC to look into it," Roy said at a meeting at Belakoba in Rajganj. Though he did not name any party, it was a clear jibe at GJM. The rally's star attraction was actor Deb.

Roy claimed that when the Hills were up in flames in the 80s, even Indira Gandhi avoided Darjeeling. "Left leaders, like Jyoti Basu and later Asok Bhattacharya, did not go to the Hills either when the region was on the boil. But everyone saw how Mamata Banerjee went to the Hills and calmed it down. Now again, the problem is on the rise and people there are being intimidated regularly," he said.

Rubbishing the intimidation claim, a GJM leader said, "They fielded candidate in the LS polls as well. If they say people here could not vote due to us, why did the TMC lag behind in the plains?" -Pinak Priya Bhattacharya