Guwahati: The Opposition Congress on Thursday accused the Assam police of intimidating its candidates to withdraw their nominations from the ensuing Panchayat polls scheduled to be held in May.
Senior Congress leaders, including Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Bhupen Borah and Nagaon MP Pradyut Bordoloi, marched from Rajiv Bhawan to the police headquarters to lodge a complaint with the director general of police (DGP) and raise concerns regarding targeting Congress candidates and their family members.
Once they were about to reach the DGP office, they were stopped by security personnel following which Congress leaders staged a sit-in protest outside the premises.
Congress MP Pradyut Bordoloi claimed that their candidates have been kidnapped, threatened or forced to withdraw their nominations.
Assam Congress president Bhupen Kumar Borah alleged that the Assam Police is ‘representing’ the BJP leaders.
Bordoloi said he had written to the DGP on April 9, detailing incidents in districts like Nagaon and Morigaon where police allegedly acted at the behest of the BJP.
“This has become a pattern — newly inducted BJP members file FIRs against Congress functionaries, and the local police, especially some overzealous officer-in-charges, pressure our candidates to withdraw from the elections,” he said.
Bordoloi said that despite assurances from the DGP, no action had been taken. “Shockingly, one of the officers we named in our complaint continues to operate as a BJP agent. On Wednesday, he picked up one of our candidates at 3 am based on a vague FIR filed by an unidentified person,” he alleged.
The protest came two days after Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed that the Congress had virtually given a “walkover” to the BJP, given the number of seats won unopposed.
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Thursday marked the final day for withdrawal of nominations for the three-tier panchayat polls scheduled for May 2 and 7 across 27 of the state’s 35 districts.
As of Tuesday, the ruling party had secured 200 anchalik panchayat and 18 zila parishad seats uncontested.
