West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the Election Commission, contending that the special intensive revision of poll rolls is being conducted in a partisan and hurried manner ahead of the Assembly elections, The Telegraph reported on Monday.
Assembly elections in the state are expected to be held by April.
On Saturday, Banerjee also wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, questioning the deployment of “nearly 8,100 micro-observers” for the exercise. She contended that the deployment has no basis in election laws.
Further, Banerjee said that four Indian Administrative Service officers from the Tripura cadre had been appointed as observers through a January 10 communication, in addition to five observers from the Centre and 12 from West Bengal.
“It is reported that some observers are functioning from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, and have taken control of the [Election Commission] portal without any legal authority,” the Trinamool Congress chief’s letter said. “They are allegedly manipulating data to subvert the roll revision process with ulterior motives.”
She further alleged that this amounted to a “backdoor mechanism for the exclusion and disenfranchisement of a large number of eligible electors”.
“For West Bengal, it appears that an entirely different set of rules is being applied, contrary to statutory provisions and for reasons that remain inexplicable,” Banerjee said in the letter.
The draft electoral rolls for West Bengal under the special intensive revision exercise were published on December 16. The names of over 58 lakh voters were removed from voter lists in the state as they had either died, migrated outside the state or did not submit their enumeration forms.
The court has been hearing a batch of petitions against the validity of the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in several states, including West Bengal. The exercise is underway in 12 states and Union Territories.
In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly elections in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll.
Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll.
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