The cat is out of the bag: Mamata on BJP stamp row

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday alleged that the purported BJP rubber stamp on a communication of the Election Commission of India (ECI) proved beyond doubt which party was controlling the poll watchdog from the backseat.

A political row erupted on Monday after a March 2019 letter from the ECI was found carrying the seal of the BJP’s Kerala unit. “It is now clear from this BJP rubber stamp on the ECI notification who is running the commission from behind.

The cat is out of the bag,” Banerjee told reporters at the Kolkata airport before boarding a flight to Bagdogra in north Bengal, where she is scheduled to commence election campaigns. She held up a newspaper report on the row to back her claims of the poll panel’s “lack of neutrality” in conducting the assembly elections.

“There’s no need to play your games from behind the curtains. Come out in the open and fight us face to face,” the CM said, without naming the commission.

Banerjee alleged that the ECI’s move to transfer the Nandigram BDO — an officer she indirectly claimed was close to Suvendu Adhikari — to Bhabanipur, the seat where the BJP leader would take on Banerjee in the upcoming polls, reeked of a political conspiracy.

“On Monday, the ECI reshuffled 73 returning officers of the State. Earlier, they transferred out some 70 top IAS and IPS officers of Bengal, including the chief secretary, home secretary, the DGP and Kolkata CP. And now we know which party is pulling strings from behind,” she said.

“This is not a clerical mistake, it was done with a deliberate political intention,” Banerjee claimed, refuting the ECI’s reported response that it was a human error.

She claimed that the ECI communication was not meant only for Kerala but was addressed to the chief electoral officers of all States and union territories.

Alleging that the development put a serious question mark on the poll panel’s impartiality in conducting the elections, Banerjee urged all parties to unite and fight the “attempt to impose one-party rule in India”.

“It doesn’t matter if Opposition parties belong to the Right or Left ideologies. I request them to come together and fight against the dictatorship, autocracy and protest the one-party rule of the Government and its agencies. I urge them to protest in the country’s interest and ensure free and fair polls,” she said, adding her call was not to elicit support but to “save democracy”.

Reacting to Banerjee’s comments, CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said, “When the TMC leaders frequently claim that we have become zero in Bengal, why is their supremo seeking our support? We have always been at the forefront in the fight against fascist forces,” Chakraborty said. The Left party has no representation in the outgoing West Bengal assembly.

The TMC supremo must remember that the Left Front had always been in the battle against the “BJP’s attempt to take away people’s rights”, he said.

Questioning the ECI’s publication of the first supplementary list late on Monday, Banerjee alleged that even hours later, people do not know whether they are included in the rolls or deleted from it because hard copies of the list are yet to be put up at district, block or booth offices. “Two more people died by suicide on Monday, taking the total SIR-induced death toll to nearly 220,” she said and claimed that names were added to the rolls as a fallout of her petition in the Supreme Court.

Banerjee questioned the delay in the publication of the rolls, hinting at possible foul play. “Why are they so apprehensive about publishing the rolls? Surely because the EC lacks transparency. Else, why had they taken so long to put the list out when the judicial officers completed the task of finalising the (first supplementary) rolls almost a week ago? Have you deleted more names? Have you unilaterally added names for a particular political party? We will get a clearer picture of that once the full list is published,” the CM said. Around 60 lakh names were marked as “under adjudication” in the post-SIR electoral rolls published on February 28.

The supplementary list contains the names of around 29 lakh voters whose cases have been adjudicated by the judicial officers, according to the Election Commission.

BJP MLA Sankar Ghosh accused the CM of attempting to stall the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and spreading misinformation about the exercise. 

“I don’t want to comment on the statement of the CM who frequently makes false, illogical statements even on the floor of the assembly,” Ghosh, the BJP chief whip, alleged.

He said the “EC will verify if there is any anomaly, and the CM does not need to worry”. Chakraborty alleged that the TMC was responsible for the “growth of the BJP in West Bengal”. 

“When all our leaders, including party patriarch Jyoti Basu, had severely condemned the BJP and described it as a barbaric party, Mamata Banerjee and other TMC leaders did not speak a single word against the saffron camp at that time,” he claimed. “The TMC supremo has a secret understanding with the BJP at the Centre. The tardy progress in the probe by central agencies against corruption cases of TMC heavyweights is testimony to it,” the CPI(M) leader said. Elections to the 294-member West Bengal assembly will be held on April 23 and 29, with counting scheduled for May 4.