East Burdwan, 9 November (H.S.): Twenty seven enumeration forms were found on the roadside in the Kalna area of East Burdwan district on Saturday morning. The incident occurred on the state highway near Mandalpara in the North Goyara area.

According to local sources, people noticed several papers scattered on the road in the morning. BJP BLA Kashinath Mandal began picking them up. When some nearby people asked him what these papers were, it was learnt that they were enumeration forms from Jagannathbati area of South Dinajpur district.

Local people told Kashinath Mandal to hand over the forms to the police. The police from the Kalna police station arrived at the scene shortly after and recovered the forms. The police took Kashinath Mandal to the police station for questioning.

Kashinath Mandal told the police that he was passing by when he saw the forms and picked them up to hand them over to the administration.

Local Trinamool leader Sandip Basu said, The biggest question is how did a BJP worker get hold of the forms being distributed by the administration? None of our workers have such forms. The BJP and the Election Commission are working in tandem. But the people of Bengal will foil their conspiracy.

Local BJP Mandal President Gaur Mandal said, Our worker picked up the forms lying on the road and was going to submit them to the Block Development Officer's office, but Trinamool workers handed him over to the police for political reasons. The police are acting under Trinamool pressure. We strongly protest this.

According to administrative sources, a preliminary investigation revealed that a vehicle belonging to North Dinajpur administration was travelling from Kolkata to Balurghat when some forms accidentally fell on the road.

Kalna SDPO Rakesh Kumar Chaudhary said that based on a complaint from local residents, a person has been brought in for questioning. An investigation is underway to determine how the forms ended up on the road.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Priyanka Pandey