'Why have an election': Kapil Sibal slams EC

Former law minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the Election Commission, accusing it of carrying out an "experiment in disenfranchisement" in West Bengal and asked "why have an election".

The Rajya Sabha MP also took a swipe at Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, saying he must be awarded with a Padma Bhushan.

In a post on X, Sibal said, "Election Commission: (West Bengal Election). Experiment in disenfranchisement. The CEC must be awarded with a Padam Bhushan!" "My question: Why have an election?" Sibal said.

West Bengal is voting in the first phase on Thursday amid an increasingly polarised battle in which issues such as corruption and jobs have ceded space to identity, citizenship and the controversy over deleted names from electoral rolls.

Sibal on Wednesday had accused Kumar of working in cahoots with the BJP to make the party win the West Bengal elections, saying he is a "national shame" and it is his "vocation" to make sure that the BJP emerges victorious.

The Independent Rajya Sabha MP had also come down heavily on the BJP-led Centre and the Election Commission (EC) over the massive deployment of security personnel for the Bengal polls.

Questioning the use of the logical discrepancy argument for "disenfranchising" people in Bengal, Sibal said, "They did not use this in Maharashtra and Haryana but are using it in West Bengal. " "They are using the logical discrepancy argument to disenfranchise voters, meaning if there is a less than 15-year gap between the voter and his/her father, his/her name is deleted, if there is more than 50 years difference, the name is deleted And all this is done through AI," Sibal had said at a press conference here.

It is the chief election commissioner who is the logical discrepancy in this country, Sibal said, adding that nothing that the top poll official says is logical.

"His discrepancy is stamped all over West Bengal. It is a shame that we have an election commissioner of this nature. It is an absolute national shame. It is also a national shame that nobody is doing anything about it," Sibal said.

The opening round of the two-phase West Bengal election covers 152 of the state's 294 seats, including all 54 in north Bengal's eight districts and several in Murshidabad, Nadia, Birbhum and Hooghly.

The second phase of elections would take place on April 29 and the results would be declared on May 4.