TMC, BJP spar over SC nod to fresh pleas on voter deletions in West Bengal elections

The TMC on Monday claimed that the Supreme Court’s decision to allow fresh petitions over SIR-induced voter removals in West Bengal validated its claim that the election results did not reflect the people’s true mandate, as the party’s defeat margins in several Assembly seats were “lower than the number of deleted electors”.

Rubbishing that claim, the BJP called the erstwhile Mamata Banerjee dispensation “sore losers”, insisting that the poll data showed that it was the Trinamool Congress, and not the BJP, which fared better in seats where the maximum number of ineligible voters were deleted.

The Supreme Court said former chief minister Mamata Banerjee and others can file fresh applications regarding their claim that the victory margins in 31 constituencies in the recent assembly polls were less than the deletion of voters there during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi took note of the submissions, after senior advocate and TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee referred to an earlier observation of Justice Bagchi that the court can look into the grievances if victory margins of opponents are less than the number of names deleted during the SIR. He claimed that there were 31 such seats.

The bench was hearing a batch of petitions, including one filed by Mamata Banerjee, related to the SIR of electoral rolls in the State. “We have, for now, drawn the court’s attention to the 31 seats where our defeat margins were less than the number of deletions which took place during the ‘Under Adjudication’ phase of SIR. After this, we will inform the court about the seats where the defeat margins were between 5 and 20 per cent of the total deletions.

“The number of such seats will go up significantly once we do that, establishing our claim that the people’s mandate wasn’t truly reflected in the poll results,” Kalyan Banerjee claimed.

The MP alleged that the SIR exercise was held in a “non-transparent manner, and was manipulative” and “unscrupulously targeted a specific section of voters”, whose voting rights were snatched to offer an unfair advantage to the BJP. “There were CCTV cameras in booths and EVM storing strong rooms providing live feed to monitors outside. But, were there camera coverage at counting centres where the real game took place? There were at least 60 seats where our counting agents were beaten up and forced to leave the venue,” he said. Kalyan Banerjee took to social media on Monday to post a picture of Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal present at what appeared to be the first cabinet meeting of the Suvendu Adhikari-led BJP government in Bengal, the authenticity of which PTI couldn’t independently verify, to vindicate his BJP and EC hand-in-glove claim.    

“How can Manoj Agarwal, Chief Electoral Officer, be present in a cabinet meeting? It establishes deep connection of the CEO with the BJP during the elections. Existence of election was eye wash during election, and actually the election was conducted by the BJP party office,” he wrote.

Adding to his claims, TMC spokesperson and MLA-elect Kunal Ghosh alleged that the polls were vitiated by three factors, “electoral roll deletions, EVM manipulations and counting centre loot”. “The total vote difference between us and the BJP was 32 lakh. The SIR deletion itself was three times that figure,” Ghosh said.

Responding sharply, the BJP maintained that TMC’s claims weren’t backed by poll data or SIR figures from the EC.

“We are aware of 49 seats where the SIR deletion figure is higher than the victory margin of candidates. Only 12 per cent of seats falling in this category went to the BJP, while the TMC won 26 per cent of those seats. In fact, both seats won by the Congress in these elections fall within this category, giving them a 100 per cent strike rate,” said BJP spokesperson Keya Ghosh.

In an earlier post on X, the BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya claimed that the top five seats with the maximum deletion of ineligible electors during SIR were all won by the TMC. In contrast, seats with the least deletions were won by the BJP, he said.

“It is absolutely clear that attributing BJP’s victory to SIR deletions is not supported by data,” Keya Ghosh said, adding, “The TMC is yet to come to terms with the shock that the people of Bengal have rejected the party and how, uprooting it completely from the soil of the state.”

The BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Rahul Sinha echoed those sentiments, stating that the TMC should accept the clear mandate of people.

“In the 2021 edition of state polls, there were 97 seats where the BJP’s defeat margin was 1,000 votes or less. Even if, for argument’s sake, we consider that the TMC would have won the 31 seats it is talking about, would they have come anywhere close to securing majority?” he said.

“A loss is a loss and they should try to avoid attempts at camouflaging the shame of defeat with such frivolous legal petitions,” he added.