Bengal polls 2021 TMC hints at role of BJP insider in leaking ‘Mukul Roy-Bajoria audio clip’

The Trinamool Congress hinted on Sunday that the audiotape in which BJP National Vice President Mukul Roy allegedly told another leader, Shishir Bajoria, about influencing the Electoral Commission, was leaked by someone from the saffron field.

In response to the allegation of the Union Minister of the Interior, Amit Shah, that the publication of the audio clip by the party led by Mamata Banerjee demonstrated that the phones of opposition leaders were being tapped in the state, the spokesman TMC national Derek OBrien said it was up to the BJP to find out who leaked it.

“If there is a conversation between A and B, logic requires A or B to have leaked the information,” O’Brien told a news conference in Kolkata.

“Until now we were thinking that Khela Hobe (the game will happen) means the battle between the TMC and the BJP. Now it seems that there is another group. Let them (BJP) solve it for themselves,” he said indicating that there is a disgruntled camp in the saffron party that has leaked the audio clip.

O’Brien also asked members of the media to find out who was behind the audiotape leak. On Saturday, TMC released to the media an audio clip of the alleged conversation between Roy and Bajoria, who is also an industrialist.

In the audio clip, Roy is heard telling Bajoria to convince the EC to allow election agents, even from outside a given constituency, to function in all polling stations.

“Look, we have to include this point when we meet with the EC. We have to say that this rule that electoral agents can only be delegates in their localities must be changed. The only criteria should be that the person is a citizen of the state. Otherwise, the BJP will not be able to have its agents in a large number of booths, “Roy allegedly told Bajoria.

The electoral agents of the parties, in accordance with current regulations, are only authorized in the booths of the localities where they habitually reside. The rule had been relaxed last week to allow agents to be appointed from anywhere in a constituency.

At a press conference in New Delhi, the Union Interior Minister attacked the TMC claiming that the publication of the audio shows that the phones of opposition leaders were being tapped in West Bengal.

The TMC claimed that the audio clip had “burst the lid” of the link between the BJP and the Election Commission.

O’Brien said the survey panel apparently changed the time-tested arrangement at the urging of the BJP, which does not have enough people to deploy as agents in each booth, and the TMC objected to this alteration.

“The BJP is literally desperate. They (BJP) have brought all the agencies together. They are doing this to counter Mamata Banerjee and her development initiatives,” said deputy Rajya Sabha.

However, no such tactic will be able to stop Banerjee’s victory and “the gas balloon of (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and Shah will deflate on May 2” when the votes will be counted, he said.

Referring to Shah’s claim that the BJP will win more than 200 seats in the 294-member West Bengal assembly, O’Brien said the BJP leader has a poor record of making such predictions.

“Shah had predicted a landslide victory for the BJP in Bihar in the 2015 assembly elections and his party won far fewer seats. In Delhi, the BJP won some seats in the 2015 and 2020 assembly polls. Similar is the case. case of Jharkhand and Maharashtra in recent times, “he said.