Kolkata, May 12
On the last day of polling in 17 of the 42 seats in West Bengal today, a series of incidents of rigging, booth-capturing, kidnapping of agents and use of firearms were reported to the Election Commission.

Nearly 30 people were injured, including five seriously, when gun shots were fired allegedly by Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers during a clash with the CPM at Haroa in Basirhat constituency. Thereafter, 12 people were arrested for violence.

At Krishnanagar, a BSF jawan was injured when he tried to restrict a motorcycle rally being taken out allegedly by TMC workers.

Election Commissioner VS Sampath directed state’s Chief Election Adviser Sudhir Kumar Rakesh to visit Haroa and send him a report.

Similar clashes were reported from Bhangar and several other areas in Diamond Harbour, Mathurapur and Jadavpore constituencies in south 24-parganas. Incidents of booth-capturing and bomb-throwing were also reported in Cossipore, Baranagar, Dum Dum, Barasat, Bidhannagar, Belghoria and Beliaghata.

Prof Nandini Mukherjee, CPM candidate in dakshin Kolkata, and PC Sorcar, BJP candidate from Barasat, were allegedly heckled. Bombs were allegedly thrown at BJP councillor Mira Devi Purohit at Barabazar, but she escaped unhurt. At Baharampur in Murshidabad district, MOS railways Adhir Chowdhury was attacked allegedly by a group of TMC workers led by former TMC minister Humayun Kabir.

New Delhi, May 12
The Election Commission today granted Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi three more days to respond to its show-cause notice for his alleged remark that if the BJP came to power, 22,000 people would be killed in violence.

The EC had asked Rahul to respond to the notice by Monday morning. But on his request, the Commission today extended the deadline till May 15, sources in the EC said. According to the notice issued on May 9, during an election rally in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, on May 1, Rahul had reportedly said: “People from Japan ask me...they say we will prepare roads. But we are scared whether there will be peace... If there is BJP, there will be violence. If there is BJP, 22,000 people will die, because they spread anger...this question was never raised before.” — PTI

Lucknow, May 12
An FIR was filed against Varanasi Congress candidate Ajai Rai for violating the model code of conduct for pinning the party symbol on his kurta while casting his vote today.

Rai was booked under Sections 126 and 130 of the Representation of Peoples Act and Section 171 (H) of the Indian Penal Code for poll code violation at the Sigra Police Station near the Congress election office.

Congress’ symbol was pinned to Rai’s kurta Rai as he along with his family members came to cast his vote at Ramakant Nagar polling booth in Chetganj.

After a complaint by BJP and AAP activists, Varanasi special observer Praveen Kumar conducted an investigation and sent a report to the EC. The EC later directed the district administration filed an FIR against Rai.

Sitting BJP Member of Parliament Murli Manohar Joshi came to Rai’s defence when he asserted that this was not a big issue.

“It is not such a big deal. Everyone takes their hand to the poll booth. Should the voters’ hands be cut it off?” Joshi said.

New Delhi, May 12
Giving a clean chit to former BJP president Nitin Gadkari, the Income Tax Department has said that there is no inquiry or investigation pending with it against him.

The Directorate of Income Tax (Investigation), Nagpur, gave this information in response to a query under the RTI Act. “There is no inquiry/investigation presently pending in this directorate against Nitin Gadkari of Nagpur,” it said.

Delhi-based activist Sunil Dalal, had sought details of any pending Income Tax probes against the BJP leader. Dalal had pleaded before the IT Appellate Authority that he was not demanding the names of IT officials carrying out the probe, but merely whether there was any pending inquiry against the BJP candidate for the Lok Sabha election from Nagpur.

Accepting the plea, the department gave a clean chit to Gadkari in April.

This brought to an end the alleged smear campaign against Gadkari who had stressed that the allegations of wrongdoing leveled against him in January 2013, when he was about to get a second term as BJP president, were “baseless and politically motivated”.

“The timing of this malicious campaign, mounted through a motivated high-voltage media blitz, was part of a conspiracy to tarnish my image,” Gadkari had said.

BJP leaders said the clean chit raises a question over the veracity of the operations reportedly undertaken by the Income Tax Department in January 2013, which were described by the media as “raids, searches and inquiries” into Gadkari’s affairs.

Gadkari did not take the developments kindly that barred him from a second term as party president.

New Delhi, May 12
The Supreme Court today sought the Election Commission’s response to a PIL against ward-wise counting of votes in order to keep the voters’ choice secret and protect them from political vendetta in the form of criminal intimidation and denial of water and power supply and other civic amenities.

A Bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and NV Ramana, however, refused to restrain the EC from doing so on May 16 when the 16th Lok Sabha election results would be announced.

The SC asked the Commission to file its reply by March 21, the next date of hearing.

The petitioner, advocate Yogesh Gupta from Pillaur in Jalandhar district, said secret ballot was the hallmark of elections in the country, but the EC was counting the votes polled in each EVM earmarked for each ward and this exposed the voting pattern in every ward. As a result, political parties came to know of the number of votes received by them ward-wise and the party or combination forming the government was in a position to discriminate against the wards that had voted against it, the petitioner pleaded.

Gupta cited the example of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s reported threat to voters in the Baramati Lok Sabha constituency that the water supply to their area would be stopped if they did not re-elect Union Minister Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule. He said there should be a different mechanism to count votes and declare the election results without disclosing the ward-wise voting pattern. This would prevent the winning parties from intimidating or blackmailing the areas that had not voted for them, Gupta said.