West Bengal polls: 3 CAPF personnel suspended over carrom video inside TMC office

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has suspended three CAPF personnel after a purported video showing them playing carrom allegedly inside a Trinamool Congress office in Siliguri went viral on social media.

According to reports, the incident also prompted a departmental inquiry against the personnel. While the authenticity of the video could not be independently verified, it went viral on social media on Saturday.

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The purported video showed the CRPF personnel playing carrom with local youths inside the Siliguri office of the TMC.

Jagannath Chatterjee, BJP’s candidate from the Siliguri Assembly Constituency described the actions of the security personnel posted in election duties as “extremely reprehensible and disappointing.”

“It is unclear how and where the central forces are being deployed. If the local administration or police had a role in this carrom game, strict action should be taken against them as well,” Chatterjee said, according to a PTI report.

Reacting to the viral video, Congress leader Sanjay Adhikari said that playing carrom is not a crime but doing so inside a party office is “inappropriate”.

Siliguri TMC leader Malay Mukherjee, however, said that people working here understand that casually interacting with the party is not a crime and that is why they were playing carrom.

The incident comes days after the Election Commission suspended an official and relieved two more from election duties after an official ECI communication letter with BJP seal on it went viral.

The incident triggered a massive controversy with the Opposition alleging that the ECI is hand-in-gloves with the BJP.

The ECI, however, clarified that it was “a purely clerical error that was identified and rectified immediately.”