Srinagar/Kolkata: Lending support to Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee‘s charge that the only thing left to be deployed in Bengal for elections were naval warships and Rafale fighter jets, netas like former J&K CM Farooq Abdullah and Aaditya Thackeray also questioned it.“Are Bengalis not being trusted,” asked National Conference president Abdullah on Wednesday while he criticised the EC for the deployment of a large contingent of central forces and bureaucrats. He also said that the language being used against Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee was “unparliamentary and not befitting the nation”.Speaking to PTI, Abdullah said, “If you want a strong India, Bengalis have the right to choose their leadership without being coerced towards any other direction.”“The way forces have been removed even from Jammu & Kashmir and sent, saying that they want a peaceful election…What for? Is the Bengali not trusted? Is he not part of the nation? I pity the EC in the way it has handled the situation,” he added.Thackeray posted on X: “Bengal’s pride is at odds with the might of the greed to win an election. Bengal’s citizens have been harassed, subject to disenfranchisement in millions, in a country that was once proudly a democracy. The compromised EC has tried to scare Bengalis, holding them at gunpoint, to make a party win. Moving central forces into Bengal, in millions to try and scare Bengal, redeploying them from where they were posted to protect our country and ensuring peace in troubled areas. Why is Bengal being treated like a state that has been invaded?”He added: “The conduct of this election pretty much proves that Indian democracy is virtually finished, it is an institutional effort to capture a state through fear, hatred. Misusing institutions, central agencies, central forces to capture a state. Hope Bengal gives a fitting answer to this greed and anti-India and anti-Bengal threat. This isn’t about one lady who faces this, this is about Bengal, its pride and the ideals of India.“
