Coochbehar (West Bengal) [India], July 14 : The five member fact-finding committee of the BJP led by MP Ravi Shankar Prasad paid a visit to Coochbehar in North Bengal on Friday to visit the victims who were affected by violence during the panchayat polls.
While Ravi Shankar Prasad and Rekha Verma was seen consoling one of the victims, Satyapal Singh was heard saying that the party will be taking care of all medical expense of the victims.
"We have seen everything and had a talk with everyone. We will take care of medical expense from the party," he said.
Speaking to ANI, BJP's Rajdeep Roy said, "There are near about 15 patients, out of whom 10 have received bullet and head shot injuries. Many of them have lost their eye sight."
In an attack against the Trinamool Congress government, Roy said, "TMC has failed the citizens of West Bengal. This is a whole new West Bengal emerging during the time of the TMC. We will submit our reports to president JP Nadda very soon".
The other members of the fact-finding committee included Rajdeep Roy, BJP National Vice President Rekha Verma and Rajya Sabha MP Brijlal.
Earlier in the day, the BJP fact-finding committee arrived in Cooch Behar to visit Dinhata and other violence-affected areas in the state.
BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday reached Kolkata with the fact-finding team constituted by his party. "We will visit the violence-affected areas and meet the victims and after that, we will submit our report to party president JP Nadda," Prasad said.
On Wednesday, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee said that the fact-finding team led by BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad is BJP's provocation committee. She asked, “Where were these teams and committees when Manipur was burning and thousands of people were murdered in Uttar Pradesh in the name of the encounter?”
She said that none of the teams have visited these places, but in the past two years, 154 teams have visited Bengal.
The West Bengal panchayat polls was held on July 8. However, the voting day was marred with widespread violence, looting of ballots papers and rigging. There were reports of booth capturing, damaging of ballot boxes and assault of presiding officers from several districts such as Murshidabad, Cooch Behar, Malda, South 24 Parganas, North Dinajpur and Nadia.
Reports also emerged of ballot boxes being set on fire and clashes between political parties in different locations. West Bengal has 3,341 gram panchayats and the number of village panchayat election centres is 58,594. There are 63,239 seats at the Gram Panchayat level, 9730 at Panchayat Samiti and 928 at the Zila Parishad level.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) is likely to win the Panchayat polls this time by a landslide. In 2018, the TMC had won uncontested, 34 per cent of the seats in panchayat elections, which also saw various instances of violence.
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