Don't announce WB polls till cases of 'doubtful voters' under SIR are disposed of: Cong to EC

New Delhi, Mar 5 (PTI) The Congress on Thursday demanded that the assembly elections in West Bengal should not be announced until all cases currently under adjudication as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls are disposed of.

The opposition party made the demand after a delegation of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission (EC).

Addressing a press conference, Congress general secretary in charge of West Bengal Ghulam Ahmad Mir said, "Our leader Rahul Gandhi ji has shown the country and the world, with data over the past several months, how 'vote chori' is being carried out. Whatever matters are coming to light from West Bengal are also major examples of 'vote theft'.

"In the next few days, elections are going to be announced in the state. But when the voting rights of nearly 60 lakh people in the state are under a judicial review process, how can the announcement of election dates be made?" Thousands of names have been removed from various assembly constituencies in West Bengal, he claimed.

"The Congress' demand is that until the fate of these voters is decided, the election should not be announced. If those applications under review are not given a chance, holding the election will be meaningless. If the Election Commission does not do this, it will clearly be 'vote chori'," he said.

The Congress will contest the elections in West Bengal with full strength and capability, Mir asserted.

Congress leader Prasenjit Bose said that on behalf of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, a delegation submitted a memorandum to the EC.

"We have made two key demands. First, the election schedule should be announced only after all cases currently under adjudication are disposed of. We believe the Supreme Court and the EC should set a clear deadline for completing this process, and the election process in West Bengal should begin only thereafter," he said.

"We also want to draw attention to a serious anomaly in the data released by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal. On 20 January, after the claims and objections process ended, the CEO reported that about 9.64 lakh Form 6 applications and only 99,000 Form 7 applications had been received," he said.

However, the final press note issued on February 28 stated that out of more than 9.5 lakh Form 6 applications, only about 1.8 lakh were accepted, meaning nearly 7.8 lakh applications for voter additions were rejected, he said.

"Even more concerning is that while only 99,000 Form 7 deletion applications were reported until the last day of claims and objections, the final report says that 5,46,000 voters were deleted through Form 7 applications," he claimed.

This raises a serious question as to where these additional Form 7 applications come from after the deadline had already passed, Bose asked.

"We have, therefore, asked the EC to re-verify both the large number of Form 7 applications after the final date and the massive rejection of Form 6 applications," he said. PTI ASK ASK MNK MNK