Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly and wife Dona at a polling booth in Calcutta. Picture by Aranya Sen

Calcutta, May 10: Wiser from her experience of the 2001 Assembly elections, Mamata Banerjee did not flash a V or compliment people in advance.

Minutes after today’s elections, a cautious Trinamul Congress chief got her lieutenant Pankaj Banerjee to allege “rigging” and lament the Election Commission’s failure to prevent CPM’s “scientific” manipulation.

Lawyer legislator Kalyan Banerjee by his side, Pankaj Banerjee said: “Like in 2001, a huge number of voters could not venture out of their homes to exercise franchise as they were terrorised by the (Left) cadre. Though the EC (Election Commission) tried its best to hold the elections free and fair, the Marxist government frustrated this by not cooperating with the election observers.”

The Trinamul leaders met reporters at a makeshift party office and called for re-polling in booths where “the CPM goons resorted to booth jamming and scientific rigging”.

Pankaj said: “We are preparing a list of the polling stations where the CPM terrorised voters and even our candidates in connivance with police.”

The Leader of Opposition in the Assembly referred to the attack on Hema Choubey, the party nominee from Panskura in Midnapore who was allegedly harassed by the police and CPM supporters while visiting a booth.

“Imagine the state of affairs prevailing in Bengal.”

Pankaj added: “Only two days ago, the CPM had heckled our candidate from Barrackpore Arjun Singh.” Congress leaders echoed their Trinamul counterparts.

They alleged that CPM activists heckled PCC chief and party candidate for the Jangipur seat Pranab Mukerjee when he visited a booth in Sagardighi block in Murshidabad. “We condemn the attack on Mukherjee,” PCC working president Pradip Bhattacharya said tonight.

“The attack on our party president has exposed the CPM’s terror tactics.”

He alleged that the CPM had rigged a large number of booths in Purulia and Murshidabad and demanded re-polling.

“We are yet to collect the details from across the state. But we have asked for re-polling in nearly 30 booths,” he added.

Sultan Singh, the Congress candidate for the Howrah seat, said he had boycotted the polls to protest against the rigging resorted to by the CPM in connivance with the police.

The CPM, too, demanded re-polling in 34 booths across the state. CPM politburo member and Left Front chairman Biman Bose said that Congress supporters in Domkul under the Murshidabad Lok Sabha seat had captured six booths.

According to Bose, the CPM called for re-polling in 14 booths in Bhatpara under the Barrackpore Lok Sabha seat in North 24 Parganas and 13 booths for the Nanoor Assembly segment under Bolpur Lok Sabha constituency in Birbhum.

In all the booths, the party could not deploy its agents as Trinamul activists resorted to violence.

The Left Front leader said that they had also demanded re-polling in one booth for the Moina Assembly segment of the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat in West Midnapore district.

He complained that Trinamul had snatched the electronic voting machines in the booth and destroyed it.

Bose also claimed to have received reports about poll boycott in different parts of Bengal.