Calcutta High Court on Tuesday ordered the Election Commission to preserve all documents, along with CCTV footage, EVMs and VVPATs, related to the polling in the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency where chief minister Suvendu Adhikari had defeated her predecessor Mamata Banerjee.
Justice Gaurang Kanth issued the order on an election petition filed by Mamata last week, challenging Suvendu’s victory. She alleged gross misconduct during the tabulation of votes at Sakhawat Memorial Govt. Girls’ High School, particularly after 12 rounds of counting.
In his interim order, the judge directed the petitioner to make Suvendu, Subrata Gupta (who was the special electoral observer then and the chief adviser to the chief minister now), and Manoj Agarwal (the then chief electoral officer (CEO) and the current chief secretary) parties to the case.
Appearing for Mamata, senior advocate and Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Bandyopadhyay based his argument on three basic points and an allegation of manipulation during the vote counting.
Bandyopadhyay said: “Since the start of the SIR process, the ECI had been violating the norms. The election was held after deleting the names of at least 27 lakh voters. The names of 44,000 voters were deleted from my client’s constituency, where she lost by a margin of approximately 15,000 votes and that too through manipulating the counting of votes.”
Bandyopadhyay also narrated how the returning officer had been brought in from Nandigram to Bhabanipur and CEO Agarwal and special electoral observer Gupta had been appointed as the chief secretary and the chief adviser to the chief minister, respectively, soon after Suvendu had become the CM.
Bandyopadhyay requested the judge to issue an interim order asking the EC to preserve the CCTV footage and VVPATs.
He told the court: “Since the 12th round, my client was winning by over 7,000 votes. But after that, hooliganism started and agents of all parties except the BJP were forcefully driven out. Surprisingly, the BJP candidate’s votes went up by 81 per cent.”
After hearing Bandyopadhyay, the judge issued the interim order and fixed the matter for hearing after 12 weeks.
Bandyopadhyay said: “It is said that election petitions are never disposed of. In the last Assembly polls, my client had moved a similar petition after losing the election from Nandigram against the same person. Five years later, the petition is yet to be heard.”
The advocate prayed: “Kindly dispose of the case as early as possible.”