EC’s refusal to accept letters issued to beneficiaries plot of BJP to disenfranchise legitimate voters of Bengal: TMC

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) stepped up its tirade against the Election Commission on Monday, after the poll panel conveyed that the letters confirming the sanction of the funds under the housing schemes of the Centre and the West Bengal government would not qualify during the rolls revision process as a valid document to prove the citizenship and franchise of the beneficiaries.

The ruling TMC alleged that the EC’s refusal to accept the letters issued to the beneficiaries of the housing schemes was yet another conspiracy hatched by the commission at the behest of the BJP to disenfranchise the legitimate voters of West Bengal.

“After the SIR process concluded on February 14, the EC quietly released a notice declaring that documents issued under Banglar Bari (a housing scheme of the state government) are no longer valid for verification – not during the process, not when citizens could respond, but after it ended, when no corrective step is practically possible,” Chandrima Bhattacharya, a senior TMC leader and the finance minister of West Bengal, said. “You cannot change the rules after the game is over and call it procedure.”

The BJP, however, extended support to the EC. “The commission had clearly specified government land allotment documents as eligible. Housing assistance schemes provide financial aid for construction; they are not proof of land allotment or ownership,” senior BJP leader Amit Malviya, who oversees the saffron party’s affairs in the state, posted on X.

The EC struck off over 58 lakh voters and cut down the size of the electorate from 7.66 crore at the beginning of the year to 7.08 crore in the draft list published after the first phase of the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls ended on December 16.

In the second phase, which started on December 27, 1.67 crore voters under scrutiny were summoned for hearings, including the 1.36 crore flagged for “logical discrepancies” and 31 lakh whose current electoral roll details did not match or link to the records from the 2002 voter list. A large number of people, including the differently abled, senior, and ailing citizens, had to stand in the queues across the state to defend their right to vote.

The hearings concluded across West Bengal on Saturday. The final electoral rolls will be published on February 28. The EC sources said that nearly five lakh voters had not turned up for the hearing, and the documents submitted by 1.63 lakh had been rejected. So, six lakh more voters could be dropped from the final electoral rolls of the state.

“This will be West Bengal’s FIRST truly fair election in years. Democracy will return. TMC’s fraud will end,” the BJP stated on Monday.

“The EC agrees to the land allotment certificate as one of the valid documents. Can government housing funds be sanctioned to those who are not registered landowners? If financial assistance letters have been awarded, it automatically means that the beneficiary is a landowner,” Bhattacharya told journalists at the TMC headquarters in Kolkata.