BJP member Sayantan Basu said that he will instruct CRPF to shot in the chest during the 2019 Loksabha election.

Sayantan Basu, a BJP member, said that if rivals instigate chaos during the 2019 Loksabha election, he will urge the CRPF to shoot in the chest.

Sayantan Basu, a BJP member, said that if rivals instigate chaos during the 2019 Loksabha election, he will urge the CRPF to shoot in the chest.During a rally on March 26, 2019, Sayantan Basu, the then-Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for the West Bengal's Basirhat parliamentary constituency in the Lok Sabha elections 2019, said that anyone attempting to capture booths on election day should be fired.

Basu, the then state BJP general secretary, ran for the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat against the Trinamool Congress' Nusrat Jahan and the CPI's Pallab Sengupta. West Bengal voted in seven phases, commencing on April 11 and ending on May 19, 2019, with the Basirhat election.

The Scroll.in reports, in a video shot at an event in Basirhat, Basu can be heard saying, "If goons try to capture booths on polling day, I will tell the CRPF that their bullets must go through the heart and not at the feet."

He claimed that troublemakers should be sacked, citing recent occurrences in West Bengal in which Trinamool Congress workers allegedly sought to capture booths.

He continued, "I am telling BJP workers, don't cry if you are thrashed.'' He added, ''Simply hit back. Don't beat up innocent people and the poor, but don't leave the troublemakers. You will die only once. Kill those who come to kill you before you die."

NDTV reports that he also encouraged women to have their traditional knives, the "bonti and daa," on election day, sharpened in case of troublemakers. The Trinamool Congress said that it would approach the Election Commission to take action against him. India Today reports, a suo motu case was filed by the police. The district election officer had been instructed to submit a report to the Election Commission.