New Delhi:
Calling the voters’ list issue “hilarious,” Bharatiya Janata Party MP Dinesh Sharma attacked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday and said that the TMC chief will not come to power ever again in Bengal.
“They know that they lost Maharashtra, they lost Haryana, they lost UP by-elections. They also know that due to their actions, they are going to lose Bengal too. So, they need some support. This is the pain right before their loss in Bengal. They have not done any work, they will make an issue out of the voter list, out of the EVM. There needs to be something behind their loss. The state belongs to them, and the BJP is changing the voter list. This is hilarious. They are doing an injustice, and the reason is the BJP? I think Mamata Banerjee is in the last days of her rule in Bengal. She is never going to come to power ever again,” Dinesh Sharma told ANI.
Earlier today, Lok Sabha LoP and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, while speaking in the Lok Sabha, stated that the House needs to discuss the voters’ list issue.
He said, “Questions are being raised on the voter list in every state. In Maharashtra, questions were raised about the black-and-white voter list. The entire opposition is just saying that there should be a discussion on the voter’s list.”
Earlier, TMC’s Saugata Roy said Mamata Banerjee had shown the same EPIC numbers in the voter’s list in Haryana, West Bengal. “This shows the serious flaws pointed out earlier with regard to Maharashtra, Haryana. They are preparing for a jump in the Bengal, Assam polls next year. The total voter list should be totally revised,” he said, adding that the ECI should reply for its mistakes.
On March 6, a delegation of the Trinamool Congress met Election Commission officials in Kolkata regarding their complaints about the same Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number.
After the meeting, West Bengal Minister and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim told the reporters that every voter should have a unique ID number and demanded a physical verification to ensure this.
Earlier, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee formed a committee to check the alleged irregularities in the voters’ list in every district of West Bengal. She alleged that the BJP had added fake voters to the voters’ list to manipulate elections in Maharashtra and Delhi and was trying the same trick in West Bengal.
“Sitting in the Election Commissioner’s office, they have created a fake voter’s list online, and in every district of West Bengal, fake voters have been added. Using this trick, they have won elections in Delhi and Maharashtra. The opposition in Maharashtra could not find out these facts. Most of the fake voters are from Haryana and Gujarat. BJP is manipulating voters’ lists with the blessing of EC; Bengal’s culture gave rise to independence,” Mamata Banerjee said.
However, on March 2, ECI clarified that having the same Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number doesn’t mean there are duplicate or fake voters.
The ECI’s clarification comes after concerns were raised on social media and in media reports about electors in different states having identical EPIC numbers.
“Irrespective of the EPIC number, any elector can cast a vote only at their designated polling station in their respective Constituency in their State/UT where they are enrolled in the electoral roll and nowhere else,” ECI clarified in an official statement.
This issue arose because different states and union territories used the same alphanumeric series for EPIC numbers before switching to the ERONET platform.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)