Two other teams separately visited Tarakeswar, Goghat and Pursura in Hooghly and Basanti and Netra in South 24 Parganas district, where political clashes and violence have been reported over the past year.
Earlier in the day, two members of the EC team for Netai held a meeting with the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police of Paschim Medinipur at the Jhargram sub-divisional officer’s office.
Representatives of the Trinamool Congress, the Congress and the Socialist Unity Centre of India met the team members and made representations alleging that Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres were perpetrating terror in the region.
The CPI (M), however, did not send any representative. The district leadership said the party would not seek to meet the EC team unless it was invited for a discussion.
The two members were later joined by Bihar’s Chief Electoral Officer Sudhir Kumar Rakesh at Lalgarh and they went to Netai, where the team enquired villagers about the chain of events on January 7 and whether they could cast their votes freely. The team also visited the house from where, the villagers alleged, CPI(M) ‘harmads’ opened fire.
The villagers reportedly demanded that all ‘harmad’ camps be withdrawn from the region and Central Reserve Police Force camps set up near Netai.