Kolkata, Mar 20 Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Friday, accused an officer-in-charge of a police station in his native district of East Midnapore of making a WhatsApp call to a prominent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from the district and asking the latter to join Trinamool Congress.
"The day when the list of BJP candidates was announced by our leadership, our prominent leader from the district, Biswanath Banerjee, who was expected to be announced as a candidate, was not finally nominated. Soon after that, the officer-in-charge of the Mahishadal Police Station called up Biswanath Banerjee and asked him to join the Trinamool Congress. The model code of conduct is already in force. A police officer cannot make such political actions now," LoP Adhikari told mediapersons.
Before interacting with the mediapersons in the matter, LoP Adhkari went to the Mahishadal Police Station to speak to the officer-in-charge of the police station in the matter.
However, the concerned police official was not present at that moment.
Leader of the Opposition then spoke to the duty-in-charge of the police station and asked him to convey the message to the accused officer-in-charge to refrain from repeating such instances of calling up BJP leaders and asking them to join the Trinamool Congress.
"Today, I politely warned the accused police officer-in-charge. But if similar instances are repeated in the future, we would take up the matter with the Election Commission of India (ECI)," Lop Adhikari said.
He also added that recently, the Sub-Divisional Police Officer of Tamluk did the same thing by calling some local BJP leaders to his official chamber and asking them to contest as independent candidates from the district.
"We (BJP) have the video evidence of that incident also. I am asking police officers and personnel at all levels, including the civic volunteers, not to dig their own career graves by resorting to actions on behalf of the ruling party when the model code of conduct is in force. They should remember that they receive their salaries from the state exchequer and not from any particular political party or its outsourced vote-strategy agency," the LoP said.
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