BJP demands Panchyat polls in Nandigram under Army vigil

New Delhi, May 7 (UNI) Expressing serious concern over the brutality unleashed by the CPM cadre over the people who did not subscribe to their views, the BJP today demanded that the Panchayat Election in West Bengal,particularly in Nandigram, be either put off or held under the the eye of the Army.

Talking to newspersons, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said what he described as the CPM enacting Nandigram II with more cruelty and brutality by spreading terror to influence the Panchayat Polls, said the May 11 polls be either put off or "conducted peacefully in the presence of armed forces".

There could be no free and fair elections in West Bengal as long as the CPM cadre was not tamed and their terror stopped, in which the local police and CRPF had totally failed, he said, referring to the stripping of a women in public in Nandigram.

He alleged that police was acting in tandem with the CPM cadre, while the State Election Commission had expressed its helplessness to "arrest the violence and act tough." Mr Javadekar also charged the CPM cadre and the police with beating the opposition candidates and voters and police was refusing to file any reports. More than 2,000 people were forced to flee their homes by the CPM men in Sonchura, Samasbagh, Gokulnagar and Kalicharanpur.

Besides the voter IDs of more than 2,000 people had been snatched away and on 4,000 seats no Opposition candidate was allowed to fill their candidatures, he said, terming the incidents as "Stalinist terror tactics".

The party, meanwhile, also condemned the observations by the Bush Administration and UPA leaders, ascribing the prevailing price rise to the change in food habits among Indians and increase in demand for food from the poor people. Annual per capita foodgrain consumption is 1048 kg in the US as compared to 178 kg in India, it said.

Similarly the party also ridiculed the US for holding China and India responsible for the global oil price rise.

UNI KAS SBC HT1737