The Narendra Modi government on Tuesday didn’t furnish details on the number of people killed in Bengal in political clashes when asked specifically during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha, after repeatedly talking about such violence including claims that several BJP workers had died in the state.

Trinamul’s Prasun Banerjee and BJP MP from Maharashtra Kapil Moreshwar Patil had put up two specific unstarred questions on the subject.

Unstarred questions are those for which only written replies are provided by the government.

Banerjee wanted to know “the number of people who died in incidents of political violence in West Bengal during the last five years along with the number of people who died in such incidents in the country during the same period”.

Patil worded it a tad differently. He had asked whether incidents of violence had increased in different parts of Bengal during the elections held recently and details about the total loss of life and property.

The written reply provided by junior home minister G. Kishan Reddy to both was identical: “Information has been received about a number of incidents of violence before, during and after the General Election-2019 resulting in deaths and injuries to several people including political workers in West Bengal. Concern on the issue was shared by Government with the State Government and an advisory was issued on 09.06.2019 asking the State Government to maintain law and order, peace and public tranquillity in the State.”

The minister gave the same reply to a not-so-direct question on political violence posed by Khagen Murmu and Sukanta Majumdar, both BJP MPs from Bengal.

The two MPs had wanted to know “whether incidents of bomb blasts/violence have been reported from different parts of West Bengal”, along with details and the number of persons who died in such incidents.

In all three instances, the ministry failed to put a number to the deaths in political violence in Bengal, an allegation made not just by the BJP but also the CPM against the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamul government.

BJP MPs had repeatedly raised the issue in Parliament this session and Union home minister Amit Shah had even made a passing reference to it in his reply to Monday’s discussion on the extension of President’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir.