Kolkata, Feb 28
Former West Bengal Congress chief and the former five-party Lok Sabha member Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had accused Trinamool Congress of enlisting several lakhs of the bogus voters in the state with the help of a private agency.
Incidentally, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, while addressing the extended organisational meeting of Trinamool Congress in Kolkata on Thursday, raised the same allegation against BJP, claiming that the ruling party at the Centre is resorting to voter’s list manipulation by using two private agencies.
Accusing Trinamool Congress of being disloyal to the cause of the people of West Bengal, Chowdhury claimed that he had received definite information about the existence of around 40 lakhs of bogus voters in the state, with the lists prepared by the state’s ruling party with the help of a private agency. Chowdhury stated that the voters’ lists are prepared by the state government employees. “If the Union government makes any attempt to manipulate the voters' list, the state government should surely call attention to that as we did in the case of Maharashtra. The fact is that West Bengal has become the epicenter of manipulation in every sphere, including the voters’ lists,†Chowdhury said.
He also claimed that there are manipulations in ballot boxes at the local level elections in West Bengal. “In the last elections for the three-tier panchayat system in West Bengal, there were instances of fake ballot boxes being mixed up with genuine ones. We too want the voters' list in the state to be error-free so that only genuine voters can vote,†he added.
On Thursday, Mamata Banerjee alleged that BJP, with the help of two private agencies, is enlisting voters from other states like Haryana, Gujarat, Bihar, Punjab, and Rajasthan as voters in West Bengal. “They are linking the names of voters from other states with the EPIC number of voters in West Bengal. Similar misappropriations were made before the elections in states like Delhi, Maharashtra, and Haryana, which helped the BJP to win there. The other parties there were unable to catch the trick. But we in Bengal have been able to identify the trick well in advance and hence we will never allow the plot to be successful here,†the Chief Minister said.
- IANS