AGARTALA: A local court on Monday granted bail to ruling BJP’s North Tripura District President Kajal Das after police produced him before the magistrate charging him for obstructing government officers in discharging duties and assaulting in public places.
Das along with his followers have been accused of thrashing the presiding officer at booth No 22 of Bagbassa assembly segment under Tripura East parliamentary constituency during polling on April 26.
Allegedly, Kajal obstructing the presiding officer when he was distributing a token to a good number of voters was seen scattered in front of the booth a few minutes ahead of the closing time of the election. Kajal Das was initially insisting the officer not to distribute the token to seal the entry of the voters and allow his people to get entry for proxy voting but latter didn’t agree to it.
Refusing Das, the presiding officer asked the voters to line up and collect tokens so that they could vote after 5 pm. An FIR was lodged against the attackers, including Kajal Das, for assaulting a presiding officer. Accordingly, he was arrested and brought to court.
“The court granted him bail but the investigation is underway,” said North Tripura Superintendent of Police Bhanupada Chakraborty.
However, the district election officer (DEO) of North Tripura Debapriya Bardhan has been waiting for the reply from BJP MLA of Bagbassa Jadab Lal Nath for reportedly manhandling a booth level officer (BLO) in the same booth where Kajal Das made a ruckus during the polling.
According to the officials, Nath and his associates had allegedly entered polling booth No 22 in and manhandled BLO Chinmay Das. The notice asked Nath on Monday to explain why he barged into the booth by flouting the ECI guidelines and attacked the government official but reply has not been reached.
Last year, Nath was caught watching a pornographic video during the budget session in the assembly but no action has yet been taken against him, with the Tripura assembly secretariat claiming the investigation is going on and the MLA has been avoiding attendance in the sessions since then.
Meanwhile, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Puneet Agarwal in a letter to the authorities concerned of various departments requested to undertake departmental proceedings against 27 employees who had been suspended during the poll process for violation of Model Code of Conduct and dereliction in duty.
