'Why Should I Resign?': Mamata Banerjee Cries Foul After Poll Defeat, Says 'Votes Were Forcibly Stolen'

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday rejected the party’s defeat in West Bengal, alleging large-scale electoral manipulation, voter list deletions, and bias by the Election Commission.

She referred to the defeat as “murder of democracy” and claimed 100 seats were “forcibly taken”, Banerjee said while addressing a press conference.

"No one can force me to resign; I will not go to the Raj Bhavan to tender my resignation," she said, adding that "no question of me resigning, we were defeated not by public mandate but by conspiracy." Banerjee's remarks comes a day after the BJP swept the Bengal elections.

The 71-year-old also alleged that she was assaulted at a polling station in Bhabanipur. "I was kicked in the belly and back. The CCTV was off. I was pushed out of the counting station (dhakka marke nikala). As a woman, I was misbehaved with," she said.

"I was kicked in the belly and back. The CCTV was off. I was pushed out of the counting station. As a woman I was misbehaved with," she said."

Further sharpening her attack on the CAPF she said, "Central force jawans behaved like goons outside counting centres," she said.

"This is not how democracy works.  when judiciary is not there. When Election Commission is biased and the government wants one party rule, a wrong message is going to the world," she said.

She accused the ECI of playing "nasty games". The real rival, she said, was the poll panel and not the BJP. 

"This is how they stole elections from Maharashtra, Haryana, Bihar and now Bengal," she added.

Will form fact-finding comittee

Banerjee said her party will form a fact-finding committee with five MPs and other leaders to visit places where the Trinamool is being attacked and party offices which have been vandalised.

Thanked India bloc leaders

She also thanked INDIA bloc leaders and said "Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh, Hemant Soren, Tejaswi leaders called me," adding, "Akhilesh (Yadav) will come to meet me tomorrow."