KOLKATA: Abhishek Banerjee on Monday launched a blistering attack on the BJP after the Supreme Court said the Election Commission of India could display the names of the voters included in the list of “logical discrepancy” during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls at the offices of gram panchayats, blocks, talukas, sub-divisions and wards.
The exercise should be made completely timely and all persons should be given a fair opportunity, according to the SC directives.
The national general secretary of the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal Abhishek, while addressing a party rally at Barasat in North 24 Parganas district on Monday afternoon, hailed the SC directive.
“With the directive the apex court has virtually slapped them today. The court gave recognitions to the demand of the Trinamool Congress because we have been protesting against the Commission’s decision in connection with inclusion of voters to the list of logical discrepancy,” Abhishek said.
Targeting the Prime Minister, Abhishek also said, “Who is more powerful Modiji? Your (BJP) strength or 10 crore people of Bengal? We defeated you in the court today and get ready for another defeat in the coming assembly elections. We will defeat you.”
“We will win in more than 250 assembly seats and BJP will come down to 50 or less than that in the upcoming elections. People of Bengal will give you a fitting reply because they don’t know how to bow. They have spine,” the national general secretary of the ruling party in the state said.
He alleged that the BJP is using the ECI to delete the names of genuine voters in the name of logical discrepancy in West Bengal.
“It’s BJP’s backdoor strategy on how to remove names of legal voters from the electoral rolls,” he alleged.
“The Commission has already served notices of ‘logical discrepancy’ to 1.36 crore voters and we had moved the court to protest against the move. We had urged the court to direct the Commission to display names of voters included in the list of logical discrepancy. During the last two months, 92 voters died of SIR-related anxiety and stress in the state,” he in the rally.
“The apex court has given cognizance to our appeal,” the Diamond Harbour MP said and alerted the crowd alleging, “BJP will try to buy voters by offering you money. I would say you to take money with folded hands but cast your votes for us so that the saffron party can get a appropriate feedback after the polls.”
Trinamool had won four out of five Lok Sabha seats in North 24 Parganas in 2024 parliamentary elections while BJP had bagged only Bongaon constituency dominated by Matua voters.
Shantanu Thakur, union minister of state shipping in the Narendra Modi cabinet, is a BJP MP from Bongaon and belongs to the Matua community.