Kolkata, March 31 In a strongly-worded letter to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP on Tuesday of attempting to illegally add voters from outside West Bengal to the state's electoral rolls in bulk using Form 6 applications.
She termed this "yet another coordinated attempt by the BJP, in conjunction with the Election Commission of India, to interfere with the democratic rights of the people".
The Trinamool Congress chief sent the letter less than 24 hours after the party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee alleged on Monday that the BJP had submitted nearly 30,000 Form 6s in a single day to make residents of other states eligible to vote in West Bengal.
"There are serious concerns that these applications may pertain to individuals who are not genuine residents of Bengal and who have no legitimate connection to the state. Similar patterns were reportedly observed prior to elections in Bihar, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Delhi," the TMC chief wrote to Kumar.
"Such actions, if true, would be illegal, unconstitutional, and fundamentally undemocratic, reflecting mala fide intent and ill motive. This is not the standard expected of a constitutional authority. The people have the right to transparency and to the protection of their voting rights," she added.
Mamata Banerjee stated that she had "reasonable apprehensions" that the 30,000-odd applications would be "allowed by the EC without giving appropriate notice to the concerned polling stations (sic) and to all the political parties".
Referring to the Supreme Court's February 20 order stating that claims and objections to inclusion or deletion of names in the final electoral rolls would be scrutinized by judicial officers, Banerjee maintained that the decision of the state's chief electoral officer or any other administrative officers on the Form 6 applications was "totally illegal and beyond the scope" of the apex court's order.