Bengal's Voter Purge: Why Trinamool Fears Losing 'Dead Voter' Bank

According to LoP Adhikari, Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress is opposing the move to keep their vote bank alive through the names of dead and illegal voters in the electoral rolls.

While addressing a news conference, the BJP leader showed a powerpoint presentation where he showed how Trinamool Congress benefits from multiple duplicate voters, dead voters, double voting in the same booth and votes of infiltrators.

In the powerpoint presentation, LoP Adhikari also showed a video of 'Bangladeshi infiltrators' fleeing across the border.

"The reason for Trinamool's pain is clear. The party is rattled to see names of dead and duplicate voters being deleted through SIR exercise. In 2002 SIR exercise, 26 lakh names were deleted. This time, more names will be excluded. Too many names would have been excluded if the state government had cooperated with the Election Commission. This time, 80 per cent of the SIR will be successful."

Meanwhile, LoP Adhikari criticised the Trinamool Congress government, alleging a deep nexus between a section of Booth Level Officers (BLO)s and Block Development Officers (BDOs).

He alleged that the nexus is aimed at helping Trinamool Congress sabotage the Election Commission's efforts to delete fake voters and illegal citizens from the electoral rolls.

He also alleged that the revision process had been met with hostility ever since enumeration began.

"The Tamluk BDO was misleading BLOs regarding dead and shifted voters. In North 24 Parganas district, the officers in-charge of SIR exercise has been forcing BLOs to distribute enumeration forms even at vacated addresses," LoP Adhikari said.

He told that the BJP had submitted a list of 13.25 lakh fake voters to the poll panel and alleged that in 20 Assembly constituencies, 50 to 150 dead voters were found in each booth.

- IANS