Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee walked out of the Nirvachan Sadan in Delhi on Monday, alleging she was “insulted and humiliated” by the chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar during a meeting.
“I told him, I trust you, I have faith in you. But he refused to listen to us,” Mamata told the media outside the CEC’s office. “We were insulted and humiliated. That is why we have boycotted the meeting. Deliberately he misbehaved with us. We went to him for justice. We did not get justice. He is a great liar. He was giving some briefing after our queries. All are lies. A garbage of lies.”
“I have been in Delhi’s politics for many years. I was a Union minister, an MP for seven times. I have never seen such an election commission, who is so arrogant, a great liar. No chair is permanent for anybody. One day he has to go. Don’t create this precedent,” Mamata said.
Before walking out of the meeting, Mamata claimed to have made a prophecy. She said she warned Gyanesh Kumar that he will meet the same fate as that of Jagdeep Dhankhar, the former vice-president who was the governor of Bengal before his elevation.
“I told him his haal (situation) will be like Dhankhar. You are listening to BJP. You are not for inclusion, but deletion,” Mamata said.
During his stay at the Raj Bhawan in Calcutta, Mamata and Dhankhar shared an acrimonious relationship.
“Dhankhar did the same thing. He was the governor in our state and everyday he would make statements against me. I respected him. But respect comes with a Lakshmanrekha,” she said.
Elected to the post of the vice president in August 2022, Dhankhar stepped down last July while the monsoon session of the Parliament was on.
The reasons behind his abrupt resignation are still a matter of speculation.
The chief minister, who has been camping in Delhi since Sunday, said she had asked why Bengal was being targeted.
“In democracy, elections are a festival. They have deleted the names of 58 lakh voters, without giving them a chance to defend themselves… even a murderer is allowed to defend himself, during the trial. Here 58 lakh names were deleted with the use of artificial intelligence,” Mamata said. “Why were 8,100 micro-observers sent to Bengal? Why were BJP-minded officials from Tripura sent to Bengal?”
Mamata made it clear that the Trinamool will not boycott the upcoming Assembly polls.
“We will fight. The EC has the BJP’s powers. We have the people with us. They are sending notices to voters, to Nobel laureates, to poets. People will serve notice to them. As long as he will remain in the chair, it is a threat to democracy. We have no hopes from this commission. He is a BJP agent,” the chief minister said.
For Mamata’s meeting with the CEC, family members of voters, booth level officers who lost their lives during the ongoing special intensive revision process, along with voters marked as “dead” in the draft electoral rolls were present. Two among them were Muslims.
During the day she had accused the Delhi Police of harassing the family members of those affected by the SIR process.
Mamata was accompanied by Trinamool MPs, Abhishek Banerjee, Kalyan Bandyopadhyay and representatives from the families who went to the national capital from Bengal for her meeting with the CEC.
The chief minister explained Bengal’s tradition of anglicised name forms, especially for Brahmins, like Mamata Banerjee in Bengali writes Mamata Bandyopadhyay.
“They deleted all such names. Women in Bengal after getting married switch to the surnames of their husband’s family. Anti-women,” Mamata said. “Young generation is not being included, SCs, STs, minorities are being deleted. Two Muslims are here, others are Hindus. Are members from the SC community not voters?”
On Sunday, the chief minister had moved the Supreme Court against the Election Commission and the state chief electoral officer over the ongoing SIR exercise, alleging the exercise was hurried and being carried out in a partisan manner.
After her meeting with the CEC Gyanesh Kumar, Mamata asked: “Why couldn’t they do the exercise after 2002? If they could wait for so many years why not for some more months? Why is the exercise being carried out now just three months before the elections?” Mamata asked.
Mamata suggested the EC could have carried out the SIR in the other states, leaving out the poll-bound states of Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
“They are not conducting SIR in Assam since it is a BJP-ruled state. Only non-BJP ruled states have been targeted,” she alleged.
Mamata asked if the BJP stalwarts like the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani could have produced the birth documents of their parents.
“Totally unparliamentary, undemocratic,” Mamata said.
Leader of Opposition in the Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari said the chief minister was indulging in drama.“This is nothing but drama. She is aware every section of the people in Bengal are angry with her,” Suvendu said.