By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi Sunday regretted the poll-related clashes in parts of the state and urged parties and their supporters not to incite violence.
Eleven people have died and many others injured in post-poll clashes between the activists of the ruling communists and the opposition Congress and Trinamool Congress mainly in four districts – East Midnapore, Howrah, Burdwan and Murhisdabad – which went to the polls May 7.
In a statement here, Gandhi said: “The election process has proceeded according to schedule in our state thus far. But reports of election-related violence in certain constituencies come as a matter of the greatest regret”.
“I urge contestants and their supporters neither to provoke violence, nor respond to such provocation by counter-violence,” he said.
Gandhi observed that the election of lawmakers ought not to be accompanied by “breaking of the laws of the land”.
The governor, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, has been voicing his opinion on major happenings affecting the lives of the people in the state from time to time ever since he took over in December 2004.
Earlier, Gandhi’s comments that he was filled “with a sense of cold horror” on hearing about the news of deaths in police firing in Nandigram March 14, 2007, had triggered a major controversy with the ruling Communist-led Left Front government terming him as “partisan”.
Last year, the former bureaucrat and diplomat had also ruffled a few feathers by deciding to voluntarily switch off electricity in the Raj Bhavan for two hours to share the inconvenience faced by the Kolkata residents due to daily load shedding.