Trinamool MP too demands more security

“These incidents of clashes occur during all the municipal polls. This time the scale of violence is bigger as the CPM is apprehensive of its defeat. Last year too they had captured all booths in North 24-Parganas. We feel this time the situation will be even worse,” Ghosh Dastidar said.

Accusing the Left Front government of trying to shift the focus away from the municipal polls,she said: “We know this time there will be a dearth of policemen as most of them have been posted in Lalgarh. The Lalgrah operation,prior to the municipal polls,is a pre-planned strategy of the ruling party so that the attention of the people get diverted. Moreover,the Central and state governments are also focussing on the Lalgarh operation.”

She also urged the commission to conduct police raids in New Town as,according to her,there are huge caches of arms,explosives and cartridges there. On Sunday,police had recovered a huge cache of firearms and explosives from the area.

“All the municipalities hold a huge amount of money for five years,so the CPM wants to capture all. Accordingly,they have planned their strategy in this way,” she added.

Meanwhile,Pande said there will be adequate security at all polling stations.

First arrest made in Rajarhat arms haul
The police arrested a person on Tuesday night from Thakdari in Rajarhat in connection with the Sunday’s recovery of a large cache of arms from the area.

“Mahanta Pramanik was arrested from his residence in Pramanikpara. He is being interrogated,” said Kaushik Banerjee,Officer-in-charge of New Town police station.

On Sunday,police had recovered a large cache of arms and ammunition,which was buried nine feet below a tree in the vicinity of the residence of one Ajit Naskar in Thakdari. Police sources said Naskar’s son Samar is a local CPM cadre.

“”The arms were recovered from a plot of land behind Naskar’s residence. We are investigating if Naskar is linked to the arms. As far as I know,he is not a noted political activist,” Banerjee said.

CPM MLA from Rajarhat Rabindranath Mondal,however,denied that Samar was a CPM cadre.

“All this is useless talk. The Trinamool Congress is staging all this and blaming us for it to get political mileage. Samar Naskar is not a CPM cadre as far as I know,” Mondal said.