Kolkata, March 9 – A delegation from the West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday urged the full bench of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to take action against four-time Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member and Calcutta High Court senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee for his recent public remark threatening the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar.
The three-member BJP delegation, led by the party's state vice president and journalist-turned politician Jagannath Chattopadhyay, met the Commission's full bench headed by the CEC.
Kumar is currently on a two-day visit to West Bengal to review cases involving voters' documents identified as "logical discrepancies" and to assess preparedness for the upcoming Assembly elections, scheduled later this year.
During the meeting, the BJP leaders informed the Commission about Banerjee's remarks made last week while addressing a gathering at the Trinamool Congress's ongoing indefinite sit-in protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The protest is being led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The delegation also requested Kumar to ensure that an FIR is registered against Kalyan Banerjee over his alleged statement that "if Kumar was not the CEC, he would have chopped off his fingers."
"In total, we have placed a 16-point demand before the full bench of the Election Commission. We did not discuss anything about the ongoing SIR exercise in the state. Our demands were mainly on the initiatives that the Commission needs to adopt to ensure free and fair polls this time in West Bengal, where elections in recent years have been marred by several incidents, including massive violence, rigging, and intimidation of voters and opposition party agents," said Jagannath Chattopadhyay.
He also explained why the BJP delegation avoided discussing the SIR issue with the Commission.
"The matter is still pending before the Supreme Court. We are bound to follow the order of the apex court. So, we did not discuss anything about the SIR exercise and limited our discussions to the forthcoming polls in the state," he added.
