Trinamool All India General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee intensified his attack against the Election Commission over SIR. At a press conference on Saturday, Abhishek announced that he will meet Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on December 31. A Trinamool delegation had approached the Chief Election Commissioner some time ago, raising five questions. The commission has not answered any of the questions so far. To get answers to those questions, Abhishek is now going to meet the Election Commissioner directly.
Doubts over 'Logical Discrepancy'
The state CEO office has started the hearing process from this week following the publication of the draft list. A total of 1 crore 36 lakh people will have to provide certificates during the hearing to get their names included in the final voter list. Abhishek demanded the publication of the names of these 1 crore 36 lakh voters. His statement: "If the Election Commission has nothing to hide, then why aren't they releasing the list?" Essentially, these 1 crore 36 lakh people have been called for hearing due to 'logical discrepancy'. However, Abhishek's claim is: "We want to know what caused this logical discrepancy for these one crore 36 lakh people. People cannot even know. We will come with a December 31 deadline. If this list is not published, then the commission's office will be gheraoed."
Demand for publication of 1 crore 36 lakh list
In Bihar, there were a total of 27 lakh 'suspicious voters', where ultimately a total of 3 lakh voters were excluded from the list. That list has become 1 crore 36 lakh in West Bengal. Many voters don't match with the 2002 list, many have wrong father's names, many have their own names not matching with previous lists - for various such reasons they are being called for hearings. In Abhishek's words: "This can happen, but publish the list. We need to know whose name is wrong in which area. Only then will he get the opportunity to lodge a complaint. He cannot even know."
Few names excluded in West Bengal
58 lakh 20 thousand voters' names have been excluded from West Bengal's draft voter list. In Tamil Nadu, the number of excluded voters is 57 lakh 30 thousand, i.e., 12.57%. In Gujarat, 73 lakh 73 thousand have been excluded, i.e., 9.95%; in Chhattisgarh, 27 lakh 34 thousand have been excluded, i.e., 8.76 percent; in Kerala, 24 lakh 8 thousand have been excluded, i.e., 6.65%. There, in terms of population ratio, 5.79 percent have been excluded in West Bengal, meaning the fewest names have been excluded. Abhishek's jab at BJP: "This is Election Commission data. Percentage-wise, the fewest names have been excluded in West Bengal. Still, SIR had to be done forcibly, because BJP had said that Bengal allegedly has more than one crore Bangladeshi and Rohingya voters."
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On the other hand, Abhishek is starting political programs from January 2 in the new year. He will go to Baruipur on January 2, and to Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar on January 3. There are programs of public meetings and road shows. The Trinamool MP announced that he will start district-wise tours to present before the people the information from the 'Development Diary' published by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
