New Delhi: Amidst violence in West Bengal over the filing of nomination papers in Panchayat elections, National Commission for Scheduled Castes vice-chairman Arun Halder on Thursday said that the Commission has issued a notice to State Election Commissioner for failing to stop the violence.
He said that 22% of people in West Bengal are SCs and in the past 1.5 months six people from the community have been murdered. "All this is done by politically motivated forces so that the poor SCs of the state may fear for even thinking to participate in the elections", he said.
Blaming the TMC over misgovernance and atrocities against SCs, Haldar said, "I undertook the spot visits in each of these cases. It was my general observation during these visits that the investigation into the matter was crowded with numerous administrative lapses. The attitude of the authorities was not found sympathetic towards SC populace, which is expected from them as per their service rules."
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"It is understood that just after joining of new Election Commissioner, Panchayat elections were declared, and cases of atrocities towards SC were increased", he alleged. "For instance, the MLA of the Sonamukhi Assembly constituency was attacked and similar attacks were taken place on SCs in Indas and Canning Assembly constituencies. SCs are living in fear and there is a state of virtual anarchy for them, as there is no one to listen to their problems, difficulties and social constraints", he pointed out.
Taking a jibe at Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee, the vice-chairman noted that "This Commission was constituted under Article 338 of the Constitution of India to safeguard the social, economic and political rights of Scheduled Castes."
"To my dismay, a non-political visit of the undersigned is not being allowed in the name of the model code of conduct being imposed due to Panchayat elections. Even after repetitively contacting the office of the Election Commissioner, NOC for the visit was not issued", Haldar informed. He further said that the State Election Commission of West Bengal may be called to the Commission to explain the reasons for "such harsh stand of not allowing a constitutional body to perform its duties."
