Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Sunday warned the people of Bengal against a “diabolical gameplan” of the Election Commission of India to deprive millions of their right to vote after the Special Intensive Revision of voter cards meets success in Bihar.
“The Bihar model will then be unleashed on Bengal so as to deprive millions of young voters from their right to vote,” the Lok Sabha MP from Krishnagar who earlier moved the Surpeme Court challenging the ECI order said.
Moitra’s apprehension was however laughed off by Bengal Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari who said “It is not Mahua Moitra talking, but it is the fear that has crept inside the collective Trinamool Congress mind that is talking. Her apprehensions reflect the trepidation that has set in the TMC ranks and more so in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ahead of the next year’s Assembly elections.”
Earlier on the day Moitra said, “Our Chief Minister already had expressed similar views. Followed by the other opposition parties too, who have asked the ECI to stop the programme which is completely undemocratic and violates the Constitution and the provisions of the Representation of People’s Act. We have moved the Supreme Court seeking an immediate intervention.” She is known also to have appealed to the Supreme Court seeking a ban on the ECI’s future possible steps to impose the same scheme in other States.
Moitra also took to X writing, “The ECIVEEP is now BJP4 India’s arm executing its Machiavellian plans on ground. Has forgotten its constitutional mandate to provide enabling services to citizens to exercise their franchise.”
Moitra who represents a constituency which represented by a large numb of Muslim and migrant votes said, “Days are coming when the ECI inspired and prodded by the BJP will create a situation in the country when millions of illiterate, hopelessly poor, minorities and lower castes will be thrown out of the voters’ list with the consequence of losing much of their citizenship rights, This “whole thing is craze, this is a clear assault on the Constitution violating Articles 14, 19 and 21 as also Articles 3, 325 and 326.”
She said that the condition requiring the voters to prove their parents place of birth would in the final run disfranchise crores, “to begin with about 2 crore people in Bihar.”
The Left too attacked the ECI for “devising mischievous ploys” to deprive the genuine voters from voting. CPI(M) central committee members Sujan Chakrabarty said adding “what the ECI is doing at the instance of the BJP Government is nothing but a blatant act of political purging.”
Adhikari however took on the TMC saying “Mamata Banerjee is afraid that she is going out of power, so Mahua Moitra is telling all these things, the TMC has been ruling Bengal with the help of Rohingya voters,they are afraid that the ECI’s steps will cleanse the voters’ lists of Rohingyas and the Bangladeshi infiltrators making it impossible for her to return to power.”
Challenging Banerjee said, “I have defeated her in 2021 at Nandigram, now I will defeat her at her own backyard from Bhawanipore seat, I dare her to fight from her home constituency of Bhawanipore once again, I will trounce her at Nandigram, Bhawanipore or wherever she contests from, finally she will have to take refuge at Metiabruz,” (a minority dominated constituency in south-eastern Kolkata).
Meanwhile, the BJP on Sunday paid tribute to Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, the founder of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and India’s first Commerce Minister on his 120th birth anniversary. Mamata Banerjee too paid tributes to Mookherjee posting her tributes on her social media handle.