Kolkata, March 31 – Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP of attempting to include illegal voters from NDA-ruled states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh in West Bengal's electoral rolls, aiming to influence the election outcome in favor of the saffron party.
She made these allegations during election rallies in Paschim Medinipur district and adjacent Bankura, also sending a strongly-worded letter to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on the matter.
In the letter, she claimed that Form 6 applications from "non-genuine residents of Bengal with no legitimate connection to the state" are "illegal, unconstitutional, and fundamentally undemocratic, reflecting mala fide intent and ill motive."
This came just 24 hours after TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee met with Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal in Kolkata, where he alleged that a large number of Form 6s were being submitted by the BJP to exclude ineligible voters from West Bengal's electoral rolls.
"I was informed by Abhishek yesterday that he had to rush to the EC office during his campaign upon receiving information that nearly 30,000 forms were submitted in a single day to include fresh voters," Mamata Banerjee said in Paschim Medinipur's Chandrakona, during her first rally of the day.
"The BJP is trying to include illegal voters from Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh in Bengal's electoral rolls. They are planning to bring outstation voters by train and get them to vote in Asansol and Kharagpur constituencies," she alleged.
The day also saw clashes between TMC and BJP supporters outside the Chief Electoral Officer's (CEO) office in Kolkata, where booth-level officers, perceived to be aligned with the ruling Trinamool Congress, protested over alleged voter list manipulation through bulk submissions of Form 6s.
"If the BJP tries to 'squeeze in' illegal voters from outside in Bengal's electoral rolls, people will resist," Banerjee said at her second rally in Garbeta.
"It will not get a single vote because the people of Bengal know how the BJP implemented this trick in Bihar, Maharashtra, and Delhi and got away with it because the opposition there failed to understand the ploy," she added.
She later posted on X that "while over 60 lakh genuine voters remain under adjudication and more than 200 lives have already been lost due to the flawed SIR process, the ECI is now suspiciously rushing to entertain these bulk fraudulent applications behind closed doors."
"This is not only illegal and against the orders of the Supreme Court, but a direct assault on free and fair elections in Bengal," she added.
Addressing a rally in Bishnupur, Bankura, the TMC supremo termed the BJP a "barbaric party." "It tortures Bengali-speaking migrants and puts TMC MPs in police lock-ups when they protest," she said.
The saffron party "hates Bengal" and is "jealous" of Bengali youths because of their "intellect and professional success" in India and around the globe, and their "cultural superiority" over the "distorted identities the BJP promotes," she alleged.
Banerjee also added, "BJP leaders hate me because they know, unlike others, I can't be bought over."
The chief minister accused the BJP of colluding with the EC to delete names of women and minorities from the state's electoral rolls under the guise of the SIR exercise.
"It broke my heart to see the pictures of mothers and sisters, belonging to Hindu, tribal, Muslim, and scheduled caste communities, as well as elderly citizens, standing in queues again to appeal before tribunals after their names were deleted from the rolls. SIR means 'devastation'," she said.
Banerjee claimed it was her legal challenge before the Supreme Court that made the poll panel add 22 lakh names to the rolls.
On the deletion of 18 lakh names from supplementary lists, Banerjee alleged, "The BJP and the EC are snatching citizenship, constitutional, and democratic rights of people. We will fight them every inch of the way."
According to the post-SIR electoral rolls, released on February 28, as many as 63.66 lakh names, around 8.3 per cent of the electorate, have been deleted since the revision process began in November last year, reducing the voter base from about 7.66 crore to just over 7.04 crore.
In addition, over 60.06 lakh electors were placed in the "under adjudication" category, and following judicial scrutiny, the EC has been releasing supplementary lists containing names from that segment.
At the Garbeta rally, the chief minister claimed that "the BJP would have deleted five crore names" from Bengal's electoral rolls had her party not fought back.
In Chandrakona, Banerjee asked the gathering to ignore who the TMC candidates in the state's assembly segments were and consider her as the candidate across all 294 seats.
Maintaining that the BJP would impose a "ban on non-veg food" if it comes to power in the state, she said the TMC would thwart the "Centre's attempts to implement NRC in the state through backdoor" and "its plans of sending targeted citizens to detention camps".
"Beware of the BJP. They will curb your choice of food, as they have done in other states they rule," Banerjee said. "There will be no detention camps and no NRC in Bengal as long as we are in power."
She also slammed the BJP for releasing a 'chargesheet' against her government last week.
"Why shouldn't the BJP be chargesheeted for deleting lakhs of genuine voters, engineering riots and stopping Bengal's legitimate funds," the TMC chief said in Bankura.
Sounding a call to topple the BJP-led central government, Banerjee said, "We will take Delhi after coming to power in Bengal. The BJP has converted all constitutional bodies into their party offices. It's high time we take them back."