Kolkata: The
fifth phase of the ongoing state polls on Saturday, April 30 presented the city
people a completely different picture from last year’s Kolkata Municipal
Corporation (KMC) election, which was marred by violence.
Kolkata’s new
police commissioner Soumen Mitra is being applauded for ensuring peaceful
polling on Saturday by adopting a ‘model code of operations’ and keeping local
goons on a tight leash.
Park Circus
saw peaceful conduct of election. However, it was not an exception. Even in
traditionally crime-prone areas like Garden Reach, Metiabruz and Khidirpur, not
a single incident of violence was reported throughout Saturday. Forget using
firearms, miscreants could not even resort to brick-batting in the areas
falling under Kolkata Police’s jurisdiction. “It depends on the leadership. If
the commanding officer leads from the front and gives a clear message, anything
can be achieved,” remarked former Kolkata Police commissioner Tushar Talukdar.
In Tollygunge,
a joint team of police and central forces ordered temporary closure of a TMC
office as it was too close to the polling station. The police also razed down
several camp offices of the ruling party for being within 100 metres of a
polling station.
As a
precautionary measure, the police on Friday itself cracked down on known
hideouts of criminals to weed them out.
While Mitra
has been receiving rave reviews for the way he has marched his troops, TMC
leaders continue to cry foul over the removal of former commissioner Rajeev
Kumar. Kumar was removed from the post in April after the Congress and BJP
accused him of being biased towards the state government.
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