New Delhi: CPI(M) on Friday claimed that BJP was aware of the Centre's decision to demonetise currency of higher value in advance, while ruing that the move has affected the party's campaigning ahead of by-polls in few seats in West Bengal.
"The BJP's Bengal unit had deposited an amount of Rs 1 crore in a Kolkata bank, hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcement on Tuesday night.
"The move has certainly affected our campaigning in terms of expenditure. Workers are facing trouble in procuring election material at the grassroots level," senior party leader Rabin Deb told a press conference here.
Meanwhile, the West Bengal unit of the Left Front accused the ruling TMC of unleashing "all-out attack" on its activists ahead of the November 19 by-polls in two parliamentary seats and one Assembly constituency.
A delegation led by CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury submitted a memorandum to Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi highlighting the state administration's "collusion" with TMC and sought the EC's intervention in this regard.
Deb, who is a CPI(M) Bengal state secretariat member, said the Front urged the EC to deploy additional forces in Nandigram, which falls in the poll-bound Tamluk constituency, and to strike down photo voter slips from the list of EPIC alternatives.
"CRPF (personnel) must be deployed immediately in all the segments. They should also be instructed to immediately undertake route march everywhere till the end of the election for confidence building and area domination," the memorandum said.
