New Delhi, April 7 A Trinamool Congress delegation will meet the Election Commission on Wednesday and raise the issue of people being "deprived of their voting rights" due to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, the party said.
TMC's Rajya Sabha leader Derek O'Brien said they had written to the EC on Monday seeking an appointment, and the reply came around 3 pm on Tuesday.
The four-member party delegation, which includes Saket Gokhale and Menaka Guruswamy, besides O'Brien and Sagarika Ghose, will meet the EC on Wednesday morning, he said, adding they were prepared for a sit-in protest if the poll panel had not given them an appointment.
Targeting Chief Election Commission (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, O'Brien said, "Enough of your arrogance. You listen to us tomorrow. We are not here to speak only about the TMC, we are here for you to listen to the voices of people you have disenfranchised or those you are attempting to disenfranchise."
TMC Rajya Sabha deputy leader Sagarika Ghose said the EC was trying to be a "bully", but is actually "scared".
"Around 27 lakh people are out of the adjudication list. The first phase electoral roll has been frozen. How are genuine voters going to be added?" she said and accused the EC of being partial.
Nearly 91 lakh voters have been deleted from the electoral rolls in West Bengal following the Special Intensive Revision exercise in the state, according to data released by the Election Commission.
The poll panel is yet to officially announce the final voter base for the state after the roll revision process.
From the available figures, however, the total deletion in the state at this point, based on the 7.66 crore electors identified at the end of October last year, stands at over 11.85 per cent.
The final deletion figure, since the beginning of the SIR process, stood at a little over 90.83 lakh.
Over 27.16 lakh of 60.06 lakh 'under adjudication' voters have been deleted during the now-concluded scrutiny by judicial officers, the EC data showed.
