Home TRENDING INDIAN VILLAGE ELECTION CLASHES KILL SEVEN.

INDIAN VILLAGE ELECTION CLASHES KILL SEVEN.

INDIAN VILLAGE ELECTION CLASHES KILL SEVEN.

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India’s West Bengal state, known for its political violence during election campaigns, saw at least seven deaths and scores more injuries on Saturday as a result of fights over municipal votes.

Voters in West Bengal are currently casting their ballots to elect municipal leaders, with more than 200,000 candidates across the state of 104 million people. PHOTO: AFP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the current ruling party in India, has made significant efforts in recent years to establish a foothold in West Bengal, a state previously ruled by a communist party.

Across the state’s 104 million residents, voters are deciding between more than 200,000 candidates for local leadership positions.

Jawed Shamim, the additional director general of the West Bengal police department, told AFP that seven people had been murdered and scores more injured in poll-related violence in several areas across the state.

Five of the dead were members of the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress party, according to a second police officer who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The other two belonged to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal.

Local news outlets displayed footage of election day violence, including ballot boxes being stolen and set on fire outside polling places and members of opposing political parties roaming the streets with batons.

Paramilitary forces stood vigil at other polling places to maintain order.

During the elections, police reportedly reported seizing more than 200 crude bombs, which are commonly used in West Bengal elections and sold cheaply on the black market to maim or intimidate voters.

Long periods of conflict

Mamata Banerjee, head of the Trinamool Congress, has controlled West Bengal since 2011, when her party overthrew the Communist-led government that had been in place for the previous three decades.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP has been accused by Banerjee, a staunch critic of Modi’s, of trying to import divisive sectarian politics into the state, which has a sizable Muslim minority.

In response, Modi has said that widespread corruption permeates her administration.

However, political violence in the state has deep historical roots; since the 1960s, authorities have recorded thousands of deaths in the weeks leading up to elections.

Several workers from both parties were killed during the 2021 state election, which Trinamool won decisively despite a strong showing from the BJP. Their bodies were occasionally hung from trees as a form of intimidation.

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