Former West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday claimed that the political fallout of the Bengal election has become so intense that she can no longer even step out of her home.
The opposition bloc has demanded the removal of Gyanesh Kumar amid reports of differences within the Election Commission over decisions related to the SIR process. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, speaking at the meeting, put forward a set of demands centred on electoral rolls and voter rights. These included using the pre-SIR electoral rolls for future elections, ensuring an effective appeal mechanism before a voter’s name is removed, protecting eligible voters from exclusion caused by administrative failures, greater transparency in electoral-roll revisions and a return to ballot-paper voting.
“I cannot move out of my house now,” she said at the meeting, according to party sources, underlining what she described as a series of attacks targeting Trinamool leaders. Banerjee referred to the CEC as “Vanish Kumar” – a jibe she has increasingly used while accusing the Election Commission of removing voters’ names from the electoral rolls, according to sources. She also described the SIR exercise in Bengal as a “botched-up exercise” and demanded action against the CEC, according to sources. The Election Commission, however, has said that internal queries and differences among commissioners are part of institutional deliberations and has maintained that final decisions were taken through the established process.
