Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP and party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee would soon take stock of the progress in identifying ‘fake’ voters in Bengal.
According to sources, a virtual meeting in this regard will take place on March 15 at 4 pm, and all members of the party’s state committee, district presidents, and heads of the various party wings have been asked to join the meeting.
The sources added that detailed progress reports would be collected from different levels and placed before party chairperson Mamata Banerjee. The first TMC organisational meet to identify ‘fake’ voters took place on March 6 but Abhishek Banerjee was unable to attend it owing to prior commitments.
On February 27, while addressing a party meeting at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had alleged that the BJP was manipulating voters’ lists with help from the Election Commission ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls. Apart from directing her party workers to ‘clean up’ the electoral rolls, Mamata Banerjee also announced the formation of a new committee comprising senior leaders such as Subrata Bakshi, Derek O’Brien, Abhishek Banerjee, and Firhad Hakim to oversee the voter list verification process.
Following the chief minister’s order, TMC leaders in West Bengal began a “state-wide house-to-house survey” to identify ‘fake voters’.
TMC spokesperson Joy Prakash Majumdar told The Indian Express, “The first meeting was held on March 6th, then Mamata Banerjee herself had postponed the visits and monitoring process of the committee till further notice… each organisational district should form a committee with all MLAs, MPs, block presidents and frontal organisation presidents of the party to scrutinise the voters’ lists… The scrutiny is a continuous process.”
Reacting to the TMC’s allegations, the EC issued a statement clarifying that similar EPIC numbers may have been allotted to voters in different states. “The Commission has now decided to resolve this long-pending issue after detailed discussions within the technical teams and concerned CEOs in the next three months by ensuring a unique national EPIC number to the existing electors having a duplicate EPIC number and for future electors as well,” reads the statement issued by the poll panel.
On March 6, a TMC delegation also met with the Chief Electoral Officer to discuss the issue of discrepancies in the voters’ list.
Meanwhile, the Opposition BJP alleged that the ruling TMC wanted to delete the names of voters from a particular community.