Rajya Sabha MP and former law minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday slammed Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, calling him a "national shame" and accusing him of working for the BJP and trying to facilitate their win in the West Bengal Assembly elections.
Addressing a press conference at New Delhi, a day before West Bengal's 152 constituencies are scheduled to go to the polls on Thursday, Sibal questioned the use of the 'logical discrepancy' category during the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise by the Election Commission.
Sibal alleged the category was being used by the ECI to disenfranchise voters in Bengal, adding that CEC Gyanesh Kumar was the "logical discrepancy" in this country.
"They did not use this in Maharashtra and Haryana but are using it in West Bengal," he said.
"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 said.
Coming down heavily on the CEC, Sibal claimed nothing he says is "logical" and called him a "national shame."
"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.
Accusing the CEC of being in cahoots with the BJP, Sibal said Kumar's "vocation" is to make sure that the BJP somehow wins the election in West Bengal.
Sibal also questioned the massive deployment of security personnel for the Bengal polls.
"It is shocking. It seems there is a state of emergency in West Bengal outside the Constitution of India. In this emergency, 2,400 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) have been placed there, which means 2.4 lakh CAPF personnel that comes to one CAPF person for every 100 people," Sibal said.
It seems the CAPF and the Election Commission, not the BJP, are fighting this election, Sibal said, terming it a "gross abuse of state machinery".
"These many CAPF personnel would not be there in Jammu and Kashmir. And all this is happening while violence is going on in Manipur. What is happening to our country?" the senior advocate asked.
"Everybody is quiet, no institution is responding. Do we expect the chief election commissioner (Gyanesh Kumar) to respond. They are the ones who are fighting the elections for the BJP," Sibal alleged.
He also alleged that special trains were being arranged to bring people to West Bengal to vote in the elections.
"Parties contest elections, not the government. But here the government is fighting the election. As many as 5,000 people from Gujarat are being taken to West Bengal in special trains.
"Those who wanted to go home were baton-charged, while a special train was run to take BJP people to Bengal," the Rajya Sabha MP alleged.
If the Railways is taking BJP people to West Bengal, it is a straight forward violation of the Model Code of Conduct, Sibal said.
Referring to certain controversial statements by senior Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari and Home Minister Amit Shah in the poll-bound state, Sibal said the kind of speeches they are making is unbelievable.
"There is a woman (Mamata Banerjee) standing against you and you have put the entire strength of the country. This is very dangerous for democracy," Sibal said.
He also alleged that the entire official strength of the country is being used to destabilise the environment in West Bengal.
"Where does the CEC get these powers from? As many as 483 officers have been transferred. Nobody in this country has unlimited power," Sibal said.
Asked about the outcome of the Bengal polls, Sibal said as per the feedback that is coming in, Mamata Banerjee would emerge victorious despite all of BJP's efforts.
Taking a dig at Yogi Adityanath for reportedly attributing a quote by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose to Swami Vivekanand, Sibal said the Uttar Pradesh chief minister has no idea about history and the Constitution as he only knows about bulldozers and other such things.
West Bengal is set to vote 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.
The opening round of the two-phase 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 first phase could determine whether the BJP can still rely on north Bengal as its principal gateway to power or whether the Trinamool Congress has managed to regain lost ground.
The second phase of elections would take place on April 29 and the results would be declared on May 4.
(With inputs from PTI)