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Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee met the Election Commission bench over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal and alleged that the party’s concerns were not addressed and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) was “aggressive”. The 10-member delegation meeting the Election Commission panel included Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien, MPs Saket Gokhale, Ritabrata Banerjee and Mamata Thakur and West Bengal ministers Manas Bhunia, Pradeep Majumdar and Chandrima Bhattacharya.
The TMC national general secretary also said that the party would not accept the final voter list after SIR in Bengal if they found “discrepancies” in it. He also said that the party would fight the SIR legally.
He alleged that “vote theft” in the elections was taking place not through EVMs but through voter lists, and stressed that states like Maharashtra, Haryana and Bihar could have been won by the opposition parties if they had raised the issue aggressively.
Speaking about the CEC, Abhishek Banerjee said the Chief Election Commissioner was “aggressive” during the meeting.
“When we started talking, he [CEC] He started losing his cool… I said you are nominated, I am elected… If he has the guts, he should release the footage,” he said.
Asked whether the party would accept the final voter list, Abhishek Banerjee said, “If there are discrepancies in it, why will we accept it. We will fight it legally.”
Calling it a “conspiracy to defame” West Bengal, Abhishek Banerjee said a “bogus of infiltration” was being raised and challenged the Election Commission to identify Bangladeshis and Rohingyas among the 58 lakh names removed from the draft voter list.
Abhishek Banerjee said, “There are allegations of selective targeting, infiltration, which have been leaked to defame West Bengal. We have asked the CEC to bring a list of how many Bangladeshis or Rohingyas have been found in West Bengal.”
He also questioned the Election Commission’s move to introduce a new category called “logical anomalies”, calling 1.36 crore voters for hearing on various grounds, including issues like mismatch of father’s name, suspicious age difference between parents and children.
Banerjee said she has urged the Commission that senior citizens, disabled people and those suffering from other serious illnesses should not be called for hearing and they should be given the facility of hearing at home.
He said, “I appeal to everyone that vote theft is happening in the voter list, not through EVMs. You don’t know what algorithms, software they are using to disenfranchise people. They are trying to weaponize the voter list.”
He said, “Earlier the voters used to decide the government, now the government is deciding the voters.”
“The entire country should be united, every party should catch this vote-stealing…that’s why opposition parties lost Haryana, Delhi, Maharashtra and Bihar…people wanted to vote for them,” he claimed, stressing that the opposition’s fight should not be on the media or social media, but on the ground.
He said, “People are seeing that if you fight, BJP will not win, because only the people will take the decision.”
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