BJP trying to illegally include outsiders in West Bengal electoral rolls, alleges Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party was trying to illegally include voters from outside the state in its electoral rolls.

Banerjee alleged that the BJP was doing so by getting thousands of persons from outside the state to file fraudulent Form 6 applications. Through these forms citizens can seek to have their names included in the electoral rolls of a constituency.

“This is an attempt at voter hijacking, the same dirty game BJP successfully played in Maharashtra and Delhi,” the Trinamool Congress chief alleged in a social media post.

Banerjee said she had received credible reports that large numbers of Form 6 applications were submitted by BJP agents in several districts. She alleged that these were not routine applications but a “mischievous ploy to include non-residents in the electoral roll”.

“Such actions, if true, would be illegal, unconstitutional and fundamentally undemocratic, reflecting mala fide intent and ill motive,” the chief minister said in the letter to Kumar. “This is not the standard expected of a constitutional authority.”

Banerjee noted that when the Election Commission published the final electoral roll for West Bengal on February 28, about 60 lakh voters were marked as “doubtful and pending”. These cases were listed as under adjudication, she added.

She claimed that while this adjudication is still in process, the state’s chief electoral officer has “reportedly received nearly 30,000 applications” under Form 6.

“We reasonably apprehend that all these applications under Form 6 would be allowed by the Election Commission without giving appropriate notice in the concerned booths and to all political parties,” the Trinamool Congress chief said.

Banerjee reiterated her concerns at an election rally at Garbeta in Paschim Medinipur district on Tuesday.

“If the BJP tries to squeeze in illegal outstation voters in Bengal’s electoral rolls, then people will resist,” PTI quoted her as saying. “They will not get a single vote of the people of Bengal because they know the saffron party has implemented this trick in states like Bihar and Maharashtra and got away with it because the opposition failed to understand the ploy.”

The chief minister said she did not expect the chief election commissioner to respond to her letter, since “the poll body is shameless in its actions”, PTI reported.

Later in the day, the Trinamool Congress said it has filed a police complaint seeking an investigation into “the illegal mass submission” of applications for inclusion in voters rolls by BJP workers, ANI reported.

The West Bengal Assembly election will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29. The results will be announced on May 4.

Will probe allegations of bogus voter enrollment: West Bengal CEO

West Bengal Chief Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar Agarwal on Tuesday said that he would examine the closed-circuit television camera footage from his office after the Trinamool Congress alleged that a representative of a BJP leader had submitted a large number of Form 6 applications there to enrol residents of other states as voters, PTI reported.

Trinamool Congress National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee alleged that “about 30,000 Form 6s were submitted to the CEO’s office in six to seven hours today, in clear violation of Supreme Court directives”, the news agency reported.

Agarwal said that the Election Commission was taking the complaints seriously and would look into the matter.

“I will see where the agency has installed CCTV… I will check what is in the footage and then consider the matter further,” he was quoted as telling a local TV channel.