High drama as TMC leaders holding dharna outside EC office held

Trinamool Congress leaders were detained by the Delhi Police on Monday while they were holding a dharna outside the Election Commission's office, demanding that the chiefs of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Income Tax Department be changed.

A 10-member delegation of the TMC had announced the dharna after meeting a full-bench of the Election Commission (EC).

The delegation urged the commission to ensure a level-playing field in the Lok Sabha polls and stop the 'misuse' of the central agencies against opposition parties and leaders, TMC Rajya Sabha member Sagarika Ghose, who was among the leaders who met the poll panel, said.

The Mamata Banerjee-led party has been alleging that the central probe agencies -- the CBI, the NIA, the ED and the I-T Department -- have been targeting opposition parties at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre.

"We asked the EC to intervene in the name of parliamentary democracy to preserve sanctity of elections. Stop ED, CBI, NIA, I-T Department from acting against opposition. They're working like the 12th man of the BJP," Ghose said during the dharna as members of her party displayed posters reading 'NIA DG, ED, CBI directors change now'.

TMC MPs Derek O'Brien, Mohammed Nadimul Haque, Dola Sen, Saket Gokhale and Ghose, MLA Vivek Gupta, former MPs Arpita Ghosh, Santanu Sen and Abir Ranjan Biswas, and party's students' wing West Bengal vice president Sudip Raha were detained.

The EC's spokesperson said the commission has no comments to offer on the dharna by the TMC

They were detained and taken to the Mandir Marg police station as section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure -- that prohibits large gatherings -- is imposed in the area and no permission was taken for the protest, a police officer said.

"We were picked up forcefully by the police, some of us fell down. Ms Dola Sen has a leg injury, she was pushed around," Ghose said in a video released by the TMC.

In another video shared by the party, Gokhale said police has not informed them of where they are being taken.

Hours later, O'Brien said they will continue their protest at the Mandir Marg police station.

"Our 24-hour dharna will continue inside the police station or outside. We will carry on," O'Brien told reporters from behind the gates of the Mandir Marg police station, around 2.5 km from the Election Commission (EC) office on Ashoka Road in Central Delhi.

"We were supposed to have our protest outside the EC. But now we are here (police station)," O'Brien said.

O'Brien claimed that after being detained, they were driven around the city, before being brought to the police station.

"They drove us around Delhi for about one and half hours... after we protested, they brought us to the Mandir Marg police station," he said.

"This is complete murder of democracy. Abhishek Banerjee, our national general secretary along with my fellow MPs and ministers have asked for an appointment with the West Bengal governor tonight," O'Brien said.

"We are here to fight. So we will carry on our peaceful dharna. This is the situation," he said.

Meanwhile, senior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee on Monday night criticised the detention of party leaders by Delhi Police during their peaceful protest outside the Election Commission's office, denouncing it as a 'black day in democracy'.

Banerjee, who led an 11-member TMC delegation to Raj Bhavan including senior leaders Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Bratya Basu and Sashi Panja, told reporters after meeting Governor C V Ananda Bose that the EC's role in the entire incident was 'unfortunate and deplorable'.

Banerjee said the commission cannot evade responsibility for the unjust treatment of Bengal's representatives.

"What happened in Delhi is a black day in democracy. None of our leaders, many of them MPs or former MPs, was carrying arms. Yet they were bodily lifted during the peaceful protest and bundled into waiting vehicles by Delhi Police. The poll panel cannot absolve its responsibility in the incident," he told waiting reporters outside Raj Bhavan.

The delegation pressed upon the governor to step in and urge the Election Commission to address the treatment meted out to TMC leaders and to investigate the alleged collusion between the BJP and central agencies such as the NIA and ED.

The delegation emphasised to the governor that while they appreciate his commitment to upholding the Constitution and ensuring peaceful voting by hitting the streets during polling days, as the custodian of the Constitution, shouldn't he urge the EC to address the TMC's complaint about the removal of the ED and NIA directors, whose alleged links with the BJP have now come under scrutiny, he added.

The delegation pointed out that they had provided indisputable evidence to the EC about an NIA official meeting a BJP leader after the announcement of the poll dates.

"In contrast, the EC immediately transferred several officials including the DG of the state after announcement of poll dates. So the EC is overactive in West Bengal but looks the other way when it comes to central agency officials despite getting complaints," he said.

Banerjee said the governor promised to inform the TMC about the response of the EC after mailing the complaints of the ruling party of West Bengal to the poll panel.

In a letter to the EC, the TMC alleged that BJP leader Jitendra Tiwari met NIA Superintendent of Police DR Singh on March 26 allegedly with a 'packet', and left the flat empty handed after around an hour long meeting.

'The sequence of events are ample evidence of the unholy nexus and agreement between the BJP and the NIA to harass AITC's workers so as to ensure that they are diverted from performing their electioneering duties,' the TMC said in its letter to the EC.

The party has alleged that during this meeting, the BJP leader handed over a list of TMC leaders and workers to be targeted.

The BJP, meanwhile, termed the TMC leaders' dharna outside the poll panel's office a 'poll gimmick' and alleged the Mamata Banerjee-led party was making an all-out effort to protect Shahjahan Seikh, the main accused in the Sandeshkhali case.