Bengal: TMC’s Rajganj candidate alleges miscreants set her house on fire

Trinamool Congress’ Rajganj candidate Swapna Barman on Friday alleged that unknown miscreants set fire to her house in Jalpaiguri.

The fire, which broke out at about 8 pm, was doused and no one was inside the house during the incident, The Indian Express Bengali quoted the police as saying.

Barman, a heptathlete, claimed that she had been receiving threats after she lost the recent Assembly elections in West Bengal and that her family was also being intimidated, the newspaper reported.

The police are investigating what caused the fire, if it was a case of arson and if there was a political conspiracy, reports added.

“If I had known before that this would happen, I really wouldn’t have come [into politics],” Barman said on social media on Friday. “Today, they even burned down my house.”

“Entering politics was a mistake,” Barman told the Siliguri Times.

Barman had joined the TMC in February ahead of the state elections. She lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate Dinesh Sarkar by more than 21,400 votes in Rajganj, a seat held by the TMC since 2009.

Widespread political violence and instances of alleged communal intimidation were reported in West Bengal after the BJP on May 4 defeated the TMC in the polls, ending the 15-year rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led party.

Barman had won a gold medal at the 2018 Asian Games and...

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