Stop making innuendos against ECI: Deputy Election Commissioner shoots off letter to Mamata over Nandigram incident

In the four-page letter, Sudeep Jain has laid out the facts of the 'alleged' attack on Banerjee in Nandigram, and the senior IAS official has also mentioned the detailed reports which were received from Bengal Chief Secretary and the ECI observers regarding the incident.

The Deputy Election Commissioner also explained why the director of security for the Chief Minister, Vivek Sahay, along with East Medinipur's District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police were removed from their duties following the incident.

Earlier in the day, during a poll-campaign in Bankura, accusing Union Home Minister Amit Shah of interfering in the ECI's functioning, Mamata Banerjee said, "Is the BJP conspiring to kill me? They (Election Commission of India) have even removed my director of security.”

“Will the Home Minister run the country or decide who will get arrested or beaten up, or will he decide which agency will chase whom," she added.

Countering Mamata's allegations, ECI's Deputy Commissioner Sudeep Jain, in the letter, mentioned all the dates when the Trinamool Congress delegations had met the commission's officials in Delhi as well as in Kolkata.

"Notwithstanding the meetings between AITMC and ECI in Kolkata and in Delhi, if it is stated by Honourable CM that the Commission should meet political parties, it is only an attempt to belittle the institution of Commission with repeated innuendos and averments," the letter read.

"Commission maintains the position that they would not like to keep on being put in the dock for alleged proximity to any political entity, etc," the letter added.

"If Honourable CM persists in creating and attempting to perpetuate this myth for reasons best known to her, it is singularly unfortunate, and it is only for Honourable CM to adjudge as to why she is doing so," Sudeep Jain wrote in the letter.

Earlier on Mar 10, Mamata Banerjee alleged that four-five people intentionally manhandled her in Nandigram and she had suffered injuries to her left leg.

Claiming it was a 'pre-planned deep-rooted conspiracy' against Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress had moved to the ECI.

Though the commission later ruled out the allegation of the attack on the Chief Minister and called it an 'accident' as the crowd went 'too closer' to the CM due to a security lapse.