KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday that the Election Commission of India (ECI) was snatching the voting rights of millions of people in the election-bound state.
“This is the biggest blunder of the EC. They have played a game with the people to favour the BJP. They thought that by engaging in a black game and performing black magic they would snatch the democratic rights of the people. They did the same thing in Maharashtra, Haryana and Bihar. No one could understand what happened. When people came to understand after the final roll was published, they didn’t get justice as the EC had already announced the election dates by then. They have similar plans here,” she said at a Press conference at the state secretariat, slamming EC for the deletion of 5.8 million names in the draft electoral roll published on December 16.
“Names of 5.8 million voters were illegally and unethically struck off without giving them a chance to explain. Women, who have changed their surname or have shifted to a new address after marriage, have been targeted,” the chief minister said, claiming that many names were deleted without the knowledge of the EROs.
“It is a heinous conspiracy. Election is a festival of democracy. The citizens decide whom they would elect. But in this case, EC is deleting names of voters to decide upon the elected government, even before the polls. They have to answer,” she added.
Banerjee also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of threatening government officials associated with the SIR process to get names of genuine voters from the state deleted and then enrol voters from BJP-ruled states.
“BJP is threatening state government officials such as DEOs, EROs and BLOs so that they may include a bunch of voters – 10,000 voters in one go. This is illegal. How can a BLA attempt to add more than 9000 – 10,000 names? Such attempts have been foiled in multiple locations such as Khatra, Ranibandh, Taldangra. In Malda attempts were being made to include a few thousand names of voters from Bihar. Such an incident has also come to light in Moyna. BJP leaders are going with a bunch of files and papers to get voters’ names deleted,” she said.
The chief minister directed the police and government officials to seize unauthorized documents and cash and lodge complaints.
“Duryodhan and Dushashan won’t be able to win Bengal by playing Shakuni’s game of dice. People are invincible. If you have the power, fight face to face in democratic manner. Don’t misuse the agency by hiding behind the power,” she said without naming any political leader.
“If you think that you will attack Bengali-speaking people in double-engine states and that in West Bengal, you will manipulate EC to delete names of voters and we would eat lollipops, this won’t happen. Protest will continue,” she said.
The BJP, on the other hand, slammed a section of state government officials posted as EROs for not accepting forms for deletion of names of some voters. In a post on X, BJP’s IT head Amit Malviya said there were instances in Malda, Khatra, Jorasanko, Chandernagore, Bhatpara and Kumargram among others where EROs allegedly refused to accept Form 7 from BJP workers for deletion of some names.
