Amid speculations of an widening crevice between Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek who is also the Trinamool Congress (TMC) general secretary the latter on Thursday remained conspicuous by his absence in the crucial core committee meeting of the party that the Bengal Chief Minister had constituted last week to deal with the alleged permeation of electoral rolls with "ghost voters" - as an alleged "part of BJP's ploy to win the next year's State elections."

The leaders of the core committee - comprising Firhad Hakim, Subrata Bakshi, Arup Biswas among others considered close to the Chief Minister — met on Thursday to discuss the issue of "spurious" electoral rolls.

According to sources close to the junior Banerjee he would hold a separate meeting on March 15 where he is likely to call all district and block level leaders.

Though sources in the TMC said that much should not be read about Abishek Banerjee's Thursday's developments there was hushed talks about his absence from the meeting.

The junior Banerjee who is also an MP from Diamond Harbour constituency is reportedly unhappy with the way his own coterie being marginalised in the party.

Incidentally the issue became public recently when Abhishek himself clarified his stand from a public platform.

He told a party organisation meeting called by the Chief Minister at Netaji Indoor Stadium that rumors were being fanned that he was moving away from the party which he vowed to be untrue.

"There is a propaganda in the social media that I am quitting the party. This is being done by the vested interests in the BJP. But I must say that I am not a traitor like Suvendu Adhikari or Mukul Roy. I had identified them as traitors who were betraying the party. I will not join the BJP come what may even if they cut my throat. I will still shout 'Mamata Banerjee Zindabad. I will not join BJP. I will not betray the TMC or Mamata Banerjee," Abhishek had told the party members in presence of the Chief Minister

Meanwhile, in a related development senior TMC leaders including Subrata Bakshi, Firhad Hakim, Arup Biswas, Chandrima Bhattacharya and Ritabrata Banerjee on Thursday met the Chief Electoral Officer to discuss the permeation of fake voters in the electoral rolls.

"We have alerted our leaders down the line and a statewide scrutiny is on. Hundreds of fake names are appearing that have been included in the voters' list. Many of these people live outside Bengal and have different EPIC numbers in some cases they have the same EPIC numbers. This is a big scam and we have alerted the CEO about this and scrutiny will continue," said Bhattacharya.

Earlier the Chief Minister had alleged that the BJP was filling the voters' list with ghost voters in order to win the 2026 Assembly elections like they allegedly did in Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi.

"The leaders in Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi could not catch this trick but here we have caught it and will purge all the voters' lists clean. We will defeat the BJP once again," she said.