New Delhi, May 22
Opposition parties may be trying to band together over their common concerns over EVMs and VVPATs, but that hasn’t stopped the cracks from showing.In the most recent development, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury has shot off a letter to the Election Commission of India accusing the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal colluding with the Bharatiya Janata Party to rig election in Diamond Harbour to help Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee win the seat.In the letter, Yechury has asked for the election to be cancelled and held afresh.Yechury and the TMC’s Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Derek O’Brien were among 22 opposition leaders who met on Tuesday to discuss their concerns over discrepancies in EVM and VVPAT results.Abhishek Banerjee was up against BJP’s Nilanjan Roy and CPI-M’s Faud Halim in Diamond Harbour.“It is clear that the state unit of the BJP has entered into an understanding with the TMC for latter’s support for its candidates in certain other constituencies like Mathurapur, Jadavpur etc. in return for the BJP’s support to the TMC candidate for Diamond Harbour parliamentary constituency, who happens to be the nephew of the Honourable Chief Minister of West Bengal,” Yechury said in his letter to EC.The Left has frequently accused Mamata Banerjee’s TMC of having a tacit understanding with the BJP in elections. It has accused both parties of deliberately indulging in communal polarisition to keep rivals out.
