Kolkata: Trinamool on Saturday accused the Election Commission (EC) of "silent invisible rigging" to favour "Delhi's zamindars" after the final Special Intensive Revision (SIR) list marked the party's Amdanga MLA's name as one "under adjudication" and a councillor and his kin as "deleted".
TMC, which has been protesting the hurried exercise for the past 116 days, urged its booth-level workers to assist affected voters in filing Form 6 for re-enrolment before the elections.
Amdanga's sitting MLA Rafiqur Rahaman said: "The matter is now being examined by judicial magistrates. The documents are being verified. I believe my name will certainly appear in the supplementary list."
In Naihati Municipality's ward no. 4, councillor Sushanta Sarkar and his mother Arati found their names "deleted". Naihati MLA Sanat Dey reacted sharply: "We believe this entire episode is a conspiracy. We will not accept this farce in the name of SIR."
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh labelled SIR as a BJP ploy. "The BJP wanted to repeat the same electoral roll conspiracy it previously carried out in states like Bihar, Maharashtra, Delhi and Haryana. They wanted to repeat that conspiracy in Bengal because they fear Mamata Banerjee. But here, they are being challenged. In every possible area, for every man and woman, and family to family, the Trinamool Congress acted as a watchdog, standing with every genuine citizen. Trinamool will continue to stand by them," he said.
Elaborating on the emerging issues, Ghosh said: "In fact, the mess is so extensive — according to the information I collected — that booth-level officers (BLOs) themselves are saying that even after they submitted all required documents, names are being struck off electoral rolls. The BLOs are wondering how they will face citizens who will now blame them for this mess. A living woman is being shown as deceased. On the other hand, her mother-in-law, who died a long time ago, is being kept on the list. Our party is monitoring everything and we will issue a statement when required."
Trinamool's X handle amplified these charges. "The full, filthy extent of the BJP's and EC's silent invisible rigging now stands exposed before Bengal's eyes. In the final electoral rolls, Naihati Municipality ward no. 4 councillor Sushanta Sarkar and his mother, Arati Sarkar, are deleted. An elected representative and his family erased like ghosts in this voter-purge conspiracy. Is the Election Commission wearing blinders, stumbling in the dark, unable to spot flesh-and-blood voters right under its nose? Or is this ‘Mr Vanish Kumar's' twisted vanishing act, where genuine voters are wiped out with a flick of a magic wand to rig the game for his Delhi Zamindars?"
Dismissing BJP's "lakhs of Rohingya" narrative as a "gas balloon", Ghosh targeted deletions in strongholds like Bhowanipore. "The BJP's only aim is to try and snatch citizenship. Once the results come out, they will realise their folly," he said.
‘The BJP wanted to repeat the same electoral roll conspiracy it previously carried out in Bihar, Maharashtra, Delhi and Haryana. They wanted to repeat that conspiracy in Bengal because they fear Mamata Banerjee,' TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said