Chennai: The opposition has criticised the Election Commission for curtailing campaigning in West Bengal by 20 hours. DMK president M. K. Stalin has alleged the EC had different set of rules - one for the ruling party, aparently referring to the BJP, and another for the opposition.
A day after the Election Commission cut short the election campaign period following a clash between BJP and Trinamool Congress workers in West Bengal, Stalin on Thursday came out in support of the Mamata Banerjee government. He accused the poll panel of acting on the instructions of the BJP, and said the EC has one set of rules for the opposition and another for the ruling party.
Stalin who took to twitter, said, “ban on campaign in nine constituencies in West Bengal. The EC has one set of rules for the opposition and another for the ruling party. Highly condemnable.” He came down heavily on the Saffron party for vandalising the statue of social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. “The BJP follows a typical pattern. It vandalised Periyar statue in Tamil Nadu and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in West Bengal,” he said.
A BJP worker had been arrested for damaging a statue of the Dravidian icon in Tamil Nadu last year, following which he was expelled from the party.
Further, BJP National Secretary H. Raja had also courted controversy when he supported the removal of statues of the social reformer in Tamil Nadu. His remarks had been made in the aftermath of a statue of Communist icon, Vladimir Lenin, being pulled down in Tripura after the BJP government assumed power in that state last year, unseating the decades-old Left front government.
