It's EC's gift to Modi: Mamata on poll body's order

Attacking the Election Commission for curtailing the campaigning for the last phase of polls in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said it is an "unprecedented, unconstitutional and unethical gift" to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by the poll panel.

Banerjee, also the state chief minister, said she had never seen this type of EC which is "full of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh people".

"There is no such law and order problem in West Bengal that Article 324 can be clamped. It is unprecedented, unconstitutional and unethical. It is actually a gift to Modi and (Bharatiya Janata Party president) Amit Shah," she claimed in a press conference.

In the first such action in India's electoral history, the EC on Wednesday ordered campaigning in nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 pm on Thursday, a day before its scheduled deadline, in the wake of violence between BJP and Trinamool Congress workers in Kolkata on Tuesday.

The EC invoked Article 324 of the Constitution to curtail the campaigning for the last phase of the election on May 19.

The poll panel also ordered the removal of Principal Secretary (Home) Atri Bhattacharya and Additional Director General, CID, Rajiv Kumar from their postings in West Bengal.

On this, Banerjee said the two officers were removed "not by the EC, but by Modi and Amit Shah".

Kolkata witnessed wide-spread violence during BJP president Amit Shah's massive road show in Kolkata. A bust of 19th century Bengali icon Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was also vandalised during the violence.