Mamata accuses ECI of threatening state officers
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday intensified her criticism of the Election Commission of India (ECI) over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, alleging that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had threatened state officials during a meeting on poll preparedness held earlier the same day.
Mamata Banerjee also alleged that the BJP and “its agencies” were distributing leaflets at the site of her sit-in protest. She instructed her party leader, Shashi Panja, to lodge an FIR in connection with the incident and told party workers to apprehend those distributing the material and hand them over to the police.
The leaflets, she suggested, promoted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally scheduled in Kolkata on 14 March.
Alleging that SIR was being used to “deprive” people of voting right, Banerjee from the site of her dharna launched a fresh attack on the ECI, saying that the poll body has three purposes — deleting the names of voters, tampering with EVM machines and showing the BJP’s seats first on the day of counting. “The democracy in India has entered into a state of eclipse. There will be an attempt to tamper with the EVM machines besides deleting names of voters. On the day of poll results, the BJP’s seats will be shown first by manipulating the officers,” she stated.
Banerjee also urged the political party at the Centre to give back voting rights to the people. Many of the voters whose names have been deleted are very much Indian voters, she argued.
“The CEC threatened our officers today at the meeting. It was learnt that he would take action even after May. I want to tell the CEC that having courage is good, but false bravado is not good. Will you stay and enjoy the same portfolio after May this year,” she said.
“Does ECI know how many people died by stroke because of the implementation of SIR,” she added.
Once again stressing the BJP-ECI “unholy nexus”, she alleged that as the BJP failed to make any impact in Bengal, they were trying to delete the names of valid voters by hatching a conspiracy,” Banerjee alleged further.
“We have only one point; everyone must be given the right to vote. We want to ensure voting rights for all,” Banerjee said, claiming that intimidation and deletion of names from electoral rolls were being employed as political tools.
“If you think you can capture power by attacking people, intimidating them and removing names from the voters’ list, that will not happen,” Banerjee said.
Her remarks came against the backdrop of the Election Commission’s full bench meeting with senior administrative and police officials of the state earlier in the day, to review preparedness for the upcoming Assembly elections.
On the alleged leaflet distribution issue, Banerjee added: “They have no right to distribute such leaflets at the programmes of another political party. They don’t have people’s support. They are ‘vote chor’. They use agencies,” she alleged. She also claimed that those involved in the leaflet distribution had fled after being confronted.
On Governor CV Ananda Bose’s resignation, she alleged that the “BJP will convert the Lok Bhavan into a BJP Bhavan”.
