The Trinamool Congress has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission of India against Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of breaking the model code of conduct by offering sops to the voters of Bengal.

A five-member TMC delegation has brought to the notice of the ECI how the Prime Minister had in a telephonic conversation with Krishnagar BJP candidate Amrita Roy offered to distribute Rs 3,000 crore recovered by the Enforcement Directorate officials in various raids among the people of Bengal.

“You are first telling in a telephonic conversation it to your candidate about distribution of Rs 3,000 crore recovered by the ED … your are getting this conversation recorded and allowing that to go viral … can you do this during the elections … is it not a violation of the MCC,” Bengal minister and senior TMC leader Shashi Panja said adding, “my question is how the Prime Minister would have reacted if similar things would have been done by the leaders of opposition parties.”

In a telephonic conversation with Rajmata Amrita Roy of Krishnagar --- who is also the BJP candidate contesting against TMC’s Mohua Moitra --- the Prime on Wednesday said that he was considering ways to return the looted money confiscated by the ED.

More than “Rs 3,000 crore of the people have been looted and the ED has confiscated that money … this money should go back to the poor people of Bengal from whom this money has been extracted … we are thinking to device some plan after the elections to return this money to the people,” the Prime Minister told Roy asking her to tell the people about the Government’s plans.

Panja also expressed dismay at the heightened activities of the central investigating agencies during the elections. Visibly sounding helpless the Bengal minister whose party and whose government has often been accused of using the state machinery to destroy the opposition by bringing false and non-bailable charges wondered, whether “it is a level-playing field being offered … never before in Indian electoral history ED, CBI or NIA had landed at your doorsteps like this during the elections … my question is it just.”

Bringing damaging charges against the State BJP leadership and accusing it of conniving with the officials ED, CBI and NIA to falsely implicate its leaders during the elections to impede campaign process, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh alleged how “I have come to know about two BJP leaders meeting an SP of the NIA at place in the New Town area (in Kolkata) where they asked him to go after some of the TMC’s organsiers and election managers in order to disturb them during election campaign.”

Ghosh said that “the BJP leaders are conniving with the central agencies to play this dirty game during the elections,” adding “the BJP leaders had met the same officer named DC Singh at the Nizam Palace also where he was pressurised to either summon or pick up some of our organisers before the elections … we will not be surprised if some of our leaders and organizers are either issued summons or arrested in the coming days.”

Ghosh also said that “the more the BJP applied coercive measures the more the people will vote against them.” Referring to the target of 35 seats set by Home Minister Amit Shah for the State BJP, Ghosh said “the BJP is not confident of winning seats in other parts of the country and so they are targeting Bengal,” adding however that “last time they got 18 seats but this time they will get anywhere between one and eight seats … they will not get more than 8 seats from Bengal.” 

The BJP immediately hit back saying in a democratic system anyone had the right to lodge complaints with the ECI.