CEC Gyanesh Kumar must be jailed for destroying electoral process, alleges TMC's Saket Gokhale

New Delhi, Feb 25 (PTI) Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale on Wednesday said Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar should be "jailed", alleging several irregularities in the ongoing SIR in West Bengal.

In a post on X, the TMC leader said the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, which takes eight months, was rushed in three months and alleged that a "mysterious" software was used to "delete 1.67 crore voters".

He further alleged that "BJP-friendly officers" were appointed as micro-observers.

"Due to the compromised ECI (Election Commission of India) and Gyanesh Kumar, hearings for 80 lakh valid voters have to be completed in just three days because software was used to mark them as 'logical discrepancies'. Today, 8 million voters in Bengal are at the risk of being deleted solely due to the ECI's manipulation and fraud," Gokhale alleged.

"This is why CEC Gyanesh Kumar must be jailed for destroying India's electoral process to help the BJP," Gokhale said.

He said the "compromised Election Commission of India botched up the SIR process in Bengal".

Gokhale alleged that the ECI used mysterious software to map voters with the 2002 voter list, which converted it from Bengali to English using AI, resulting in names getting wrongly translated.

"Therefore, when people whose names in English did not match the spellings of the AI-translated names from the 2002 list, they were flagged as a 'logical discrepancy' and were issued notices for a hearing," he said.

Due to this, he alleged, 1.67 crore voters were marked as "logical discrepancy" and the EC issued notice for hearing to 95 lakh voters.

The TMC MP said the "micro-observers" were "illegally" given the power to delete voters by making changes to EC software.

"Eventually, the SC (Supreme Court) decided to replace these micro-observers with sitting and retired district judges of Bengal. These judges were meant to complete all 95 lakh hearings before 28th Feb.

"Then, the Calcutta HC (High Court) informed the SC that judges would require at least 3 months to complete the hearings. After this, SC has now asked to appoint judges from Odisha and Jharkhand in addition to judges from Bengal to complete the hearings... The deadline for the final voter list is in three days," he said.

Gokhale alleged that CEC Kumar manipulated the SIR in Bengal by rushing through the process.

The apex court on Tuesday allowed the deployment of West Bengal civil judges in addition to 250 district judges, and the requisitioning of judicial officers from Jharkhand and Odisha to handle 80 lakh claims and objections of those facing deletion from the electoral roll in the ongoing SIR exercise in the state.

The top court also allowed the EC to publish the final electoral roll on February 28, and clarified that the poll panel can issue supplementary lists as the verification process proceeds. PTI AO AO KSS KSS