New Delhi:

The Supreme Court today dismissed a petition – filed by the BJP – that challenged the Calcutta High Court order restraining the party to publish “derogatory” advertisements against Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress.

“Why should we interfere, we have seen the advertisements and they are offensive,” the Supreme Court said as it refused to interfere with the high court order.

“You can always say you are the best, but we don’t want to lend our hands to promote further acrimony. Your rival is not your enemy,” the bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice KV Viswanathan said.

The petition was then dismissed as withdrawn giving liberty to the BJP to approach the high court.

The BJP cannot publish derogatory advertisements against Trinamool Congress, especially during the ‘silence period’ (a day prior to the polls and the polling day), the Calcutta High Court had ruled last week.

“The allegations and publications made against TMC are outright derogatory and definitely intended to insult the rivals and level personal attacks,” Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya had said.

The Election Commission, the judge said, has “grossly failed to address the complaints of the TMC in due time”.

“This court is surprised that resolution of the complaints after the conclusion of elections is nothing to the court and as such, in due failure on part of the ECI in due time this court is constrained to pass an injunction order,” Justice Bhattacharya said in his order.

Earlier, the Commission sent a notice to the state BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar, questioning why the ads should not be considered a violation of the Model Code.

Kolkata:

The BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Jhargram had to run away from the Mangalapota area of ​​Garbeta in West Midnapore district as stones were thrown at him and his security personnel during the sixth phase of polling on Saturday. 

Dramatic visuals showed security personnel carrying shields trying to protect the candidate, Pranat Tudu, as some people chase after him and a large stone hits a person just centimetres away. As a few more stones rained down around them, the candidate, security officers and some media personnel can be seen making a run for it. 

While Mr Tudu has blamed “Trinamool Congress (TMC) goons” for the incident and claimed two of his security personnel suffered head injuries and had to be hospitalised, the ruling party in Bengal said his security officers assaulted a woman while she was waiting in line to cast her vote outside a polling booth. This, they said, triggered a protest. 

In a post on X, the BJP’s Bengal co-incharge, Amit Malviya, also blamed the TMC for the attack and claimed that people are voting to “kick out” Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s party.

Mamata Banerjee is murdering democracy in Bengal. Now, TMC goons attack BJP’s Jhargram (a Tribal seat) candidate and ABP Ananda’s crew. Despite attempts to preclude people from casting vote, West Bengal has one of the highest voter turnout across the country. People are voting to… pic.twitter.com/ZMdTPhxiYw

— Amit Malviya (मोदी का परिवार) (@amitmalviya) May 25, 2024

‘Threw Bricks’

According to the BJP, Mr Tudu was on his way to some polling booths in Garpeta after receiving reports that the party’s agents were not being allowed inside. 

“All of a sudden, TMC goons who had blocked the roads started hurling bricks at my car. When my security personnel tried to intervene, they were injured. Two CISF jawans accompanying me received head injuries and had to be hospitalised,” Mr Tudu was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. 

The TMC, however, claimed Mr Tudu’s security personnel attacked a woman who was waiting in line to vote. “The villagers got enraged and staged a protest,” a party leader said. 

Vehicles being used by media personnel were also vandalised by the crowd. A police team has been sent to the area to control the situation, the PTI report said. 

The Jhargram Lok Sabha constituency was one of 18 won by the BJP in West Bengal in 2019, up from only two in the general elections before that. The BJP candidate in 2019, Kunar Hembram, had beaten the Trinamool pick, Birbaha Saren, by a margin of only about 12,000 votes.

The contest this time is between Mr Tudu, Kalipada Soren of the Trinamool Congress and Sonamamu Murmu (Tudu) of the CPM. 

Kolkata:

A recent twist in the Sandeshkhali incident has thrown the political arena into turmoil as a ‘sting video’ has emerged, sparking heated debates and accusations between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The controversy ignited when the Trinamool Congress asserted that a ‘sting video’ had brought to light the BJP’s strategy to discredit them regarding the Sandeshkhali incident. Gangadhar Kayl, the BJP leader allegedly in the video, swiftly responded by filing a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), claiming manipulation through Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The video purportedly shows the BJP leader admitting that no rapes or sexual harassment had taken place and women were convinced to file such complaints at the directions of senior party leader Suvendu Adhikari.

Mr Kayl, in his complaint, claimed that his facial features and voice were manipulated using AI technology to fabricate the video.

“I have come across a video… where it can be seen that the same has been made using my face and the voice has been modulated using Artificial Intelligence,” he stated, emphasizing that the intention was to mislead the public and disrupt ongoing investigations.

Mr Kayl also accused Trinamool’s Abhishek Banerjee of orchestrating the conspiracy to protect the actual perpetrators of the Sandeshkhali incident. He highlighted discrepancies in the video, citing desynchronization between audio and video, obscured facial features, and poor audio quality, alluding to deliberate manipulation.

“The face of the speaker, cannot be seen properly and has been edited in such a way so that the face remains in the dark. Audio quality is not clear and to suffice that subtitles have been used and the same has been couched in such a way that can disturb the ongoing investigation,” the complaint alleged.

The BJP Sandeshkhali leader further, urged the CBI to investigate the said video footage.

The video surfaced at a time when West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose, who had also hit out at the state government over the Sandeskhali allegations, was accused of sexual harassment by a temporary employee of the Raj Bhavan.

The women of Sandeshkhali had alleged that they were raped and sexually harassed by TMC strongman Shahjahan and his aides. This prompted massive protests by the Bengal BJP and snowballed into a major national political issue ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also attacked the Trinamool Congress and Ms Banerjee and accused them of shielding the leader, who was eventually arrested in February after being on the run for over 50 days.