The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday managed to get under the skin of the Election Commission at a meeting where the party complained about the alleged deployment of biased officers in Bengal, prompting the poll panel to take the rare step of engaging in a public confrontation that struck at the heart of its neutrality motto.

Coming out of a meeting with chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and his deputies that lasted less than six minutes, Trinamool Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien told reporters near Nirvachan Sadan: “‘Get Lost!’ This is what the CEC told the Trinamool Congress delegation.... Nine letters written by the Trinamool chairperson (chief minister Mamata Banerjee) to the EC. No acknowledgement. No reply. You have ignored all these nine letters.”

The other members of the delegation were the party’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Sagarika Ghose, newly elected MP to the Upper House, Menaka Guruswamy, and former MP Saket Gokhale.

O’Brien said: “We gave him (Kumar) six examples of officials linked to the BJP and they are part of the election process, including the CEO, with the BJP people in Nandigram.... We gave him these examples and asked him how do you want to conduct a free and fair election? And then he said ‘get lost’, because we told him we don’t want to listen to you. You don’t let your fellow officers speak. We have done eight-nine meetings here. None of the fellow election commissioners have said anything.”

The Trinamool MP added: “What I saw today is a shame. I challenge the CEC... to put out the video to show what happened today or put out the audio.... At the end, while we were walking out, one of my colleagues congratulated him for being the only CEC in the history of India to have notices to remove him in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.”

Soon after the Trinamool MPs left the building, the poll panel made a social media post where it named the party and uploaded a photograph of all three commissioners, saying: “ECI’s Straight-talk to Trinamool Congress. This time, the Elections in West Bengal would surely be: Fear-free, Violence-free, Intimidation-free, Inducement-free and without any Chappa, Booth Jamming and Source Jamming.”

The last three terms refer to intimidation of voters at and outside polling stations and at their homes to compel them to vote for a certain candidate or not cast their ballot at all.

While such statements had so far been given off the record by EC officials after Kumar took over as CEC last year, this time the poll panel has engaged in a social media confrontation.

The EC’s move drew widespread criticism on social media.

The poll panel formally maintains neutrality as it cannot be seen as party to disputes it adjudicates.

CEC Kumar pushed the boundaries of this neutrality last year by holding a media conference to counter Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of voter fraud in Karnataka. However, Kumar had not named Rahul.

After the Opposition notices to impeach Kumar as CEC were rejected by the presiding officers of both Houses of Parliament, the EC appears to have taken its gloves off by naming a political entity with which it has had a disagreement.

Trinamool hit back with an edited version of the same photo that replaced the EC logo with an inverted lotus symbol of the BJP under which was written the motto “Asatyameva Jayate” and a signage that said “BJP Election Cell”.

The party tweeted: “We are also speaking straight to the Election Commission in a straightforward manner. This time, the elections must be: Free from Delhi’s control, Free from political bias, Free from targeted persecution of anyone, And certainly free from double standards.

An EC official said O’Brien had “shouted at the Election Commission and asked the CEC not to speak”.

“The CEC requested Mr Derek O’ Brien to maintain the decorum of the commission room,” the official added.

The poll panel is yet to respond to Mamata’s nine letters or the memorandum submitted by Trinamool on Wednesday, which even accused Bengal chief electoral officer Manoj Agarwal of improper conduct.

Trinamool said in the memo: “It has come to light that Shri Tapan Kumar Mahapatra, presently associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party as the Aanchal Convenor of Kalicharanpur, Nandigram, has been seen accompanying and moving within the constituency alongside the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, Shri Manoj Kumar Agarwal, in a manner that suggests proximity and influence inconsistent with the independence expected of election administration.”

The party also named and accused five other officials on election duty of either proximity or familial relations with the BJP, or having been suspected of involvement in corruption cases in BJP-ruled states.

In February, Mamata had walked out of Nirvachan Sadan in a huff after a tense conversation with EC officials on voters erroniously recorded as dead during the SIR. She had claimed Kumar humiliated her.