Union Minister of State for Health, Ashwini Kumar Choubey said on Saturday the people of West Bengal are being stripped of their democratic rights and urged the state government to take immediate steps to curb the political violence and killings.
The minister said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as the nation condemned the killing of BJP activists during the three tier rural body election process in the state and demanded such incidents of "torture and violence" be stopped.
"People's democratic rights are being snatched away in West Bengal. Democracy is being destroyed and democratic traditions are being tampered with. The Bengal government should seriously look into the problems and take immediate steps to stop this," Choubey said at an event organised by the Merchants' Chamber of Commerce and Industry here.
"There has been large-scale violence during the entire rural body election process starting from the time of filing nomination to the poll result. Many BJP activists were killed. Two of them were brutally murdered in Purulia. The entire party and the people of the country condemn these killings," he said.
The minister said such incidents are hampering the image of the state government and sending a wrong message to the rest of the country.
"A government should not organise attacks on its people. In a democracy, everyone is equal. There should be no attempts to throttle people's views. Political parties have the right to propagate their viewpoint on people but killing people to change their viewpoint is a massive crime," he added.
--IANS
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