Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Monday described the State Election Commission’s (SEC) conducting repoll in only 696 booths across West Bengal as a “complete sham and wilful contempt” of the Calcutta High Court order.
Taking to his Twitter handle, Adhikari said, “The State Election Commission is conducting Repoll in only 696 Booths across the State. It’s a complete sham and wilful contempt of the Hon’ble Calcutta High Court’s Order.”
“Everyone knows that day before yesterday; i.e. on 8th July, 2023, what happened across the length & breadth of West Bengal, in the garb of so called Panchayat Elections,” he added.
“There was widespread & unabated violence resulting in more than 20 deaths, while leaving hundreds injured; thousands of Polling Booths were captured by TMC goons in order to rig the voting process, even the polling booths were bombed, there was arson within the Booths, the Polling Officers were held in gunpoint while criminals engaged in “Chappa” voting,” he alleged.
Adhikari accused the State police personnel of being “mere spectators” or acting as “facilitators”.
“Out of the 61 thousand plus Booths in the 44 thousand Booth Compartments (complexes housing a single or more than one Booth); the majority of them were captured by the TMC goons,” he further alleged.
“On behalf of @BJP4Bengal, I rushed to the Office of the State Election Commission in the evening around 7.30 pm to submit a Memorandum,” he informed.
“We demanded repoll in those booths, where:-a) there’s evidence of false voting in the CCTV footage, including rigging by Polling Officers themselves or where the rigging process have been facilitated by them. Those polling booths where the BJP agents were present in the beginning of the polling process, which can be ascertained by the CCTV footage, but were thrown out before the end of voting i.e. when the ballot boxes were being sealed,” the BJP MLA from Nandigram claimed.
“Our demand was completely in line with the Order passed by the Calcutta High Court in WPA (P) 287 OF 2023; Suvendu Adhikari And Another Vs The West Bengal State Election Commission And Others along with WPA (P) 286 OF 2023 and WPA (P) 250 OF 2023; which clearly outlined the mandatory CCTV monitoring of the Booths & preservation of data,” Adhikari further stated.
” Initially the WB State BJP provided the details of more than 6000 Booths where either the CCTV cameras were not installed or malfunctioning or there would be clear evidence of false polling captured by the CCTV cameras. We demanded repoll in all such booths,” he mentioned.
Stating that tomorrow their lawyers will submit all the relevant documents and evidence to Calcutta High Court, Adhikari said, “We won’t let the State Election Commission get away with their daylight robbery.”
BJP leader Amit Malviya tweeted, “The re-polling ordered on 600 odd booths in West Bengal is another farce, perpetuated by the WB SEC, on instructions of Mamata Banerjee, and is nothing more than an attempt to whitewash the gross irregularities, murders, electoral violations and booth capturing witnessed on the polling date.”
“LoP had met Rajiva Sinha, SEC and Mamata Banerjee’s henchman on the night of 8th Jul, and demanded re-polling on several thousand booths (detailing reasons for them) and handed over specific list of approx 6,000 booths (a small subset of the overall number). A hurried re-poll on a mere 600 of them is nothing but an attempt to cover up for failing to hold free and fair poll. Several booths, where re-polling has been ordered didn’t warrant one. The booths that were looted have been completely left out of the exercise, to benefit the ruling TMC,” Malviya alleged.
“It seems SEC has already decided who the winner in these Panchayat Polls is… He might as well declare the winner instead of putting up this sham. In her lust to grab power at any cost, Mamata Banerjee has bent every institution, violated every law and most importantly undermined the free will of the people of Bengal. Her high handedness will come to haunt her. West Bengal will soon reduce her to footnote of history,” Malviya iterated.
