KOLKATA: TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has sought an appointment with West Bengal's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal, amid mounting political tensions over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, sources said on Tuesday.
The TMC has sent an email to the CEO, requesting a meeting on January 27, with Banerjee likely to lead a 10-member delegation, they said.
Agarwal may meet the TMC delegation on the same day, the sources said.
The request comes at a time when the second phase of the SIR exercise has triggered sharp political reactions, particularly over "logical discrepancy issues" in the voter lists.
On Monday, the Supreme Court directed the EC to display the names of those on the "logical discrepancies" list at gram panchayat and block offices in rural areas and ward offices in the urban pockets of West Bengal in the next three days and call them for hearing within 10 days of publication of the list, a development that has further emboldened the TMC's attack on both the poll panel and the BJP.
Addressing a public meeting in North 24 Parganas district's Barasat on Monday, Banerjee launched a scathing attack against the EC and the BJP.
"The highest court has slapped them on both cheeks. They lost in court, now we will defeat them in the elections," he said, in an apparent reference to the EC and the saffron party.
Political observers see the move to seek a meeting with the CEO as significant, as it is coming in the backdrop of the court order and the TMC's increasingly aggressive posture on the issue.
TMC sources said the proposed meeting is aimed at placing before the CEO a series of objections and questions related to the SIR process.
Banerjee had met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in Delhi in December, raising several concerns over the voter list revision exercise. He later alleged that the Election Commission failed to provide satisfactory responses.
Since then, both Banerjee and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have repeatedly questioned the neutrality of the poll panel, accusing it of acting as a "B-team" of the BJP.