Taking a leaf out of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s textbook, the leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Monday waived lists of voters from Bengal, accusing the ruling Trinamool Congress of allegedly trying to delete the names of Hindu voters from the electoral rolls.

“On blank paper, complaints were filed against 98 voters who came from Bangladesh and are settled here, alleging they were not residents or were physically not present in the constituency. As per the Election Commission’s rules, this is not the Block Development Officer’s job. Why is the BDO asking such questions,” Adhikari asked, as he rolled out names of such voters.

“In Bagdah too similar questions have been raised by the BDO.”

On February 27, at a meeting of Trinamool functionaries, Mamata had alleged the BJP with the “blessings of the Election Commission” was including the names of voters from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat in the constituencies of Bengal with duplicate electoral photo identity card numbers.

Since then the Trinamool has doubled down on its attack to keep alive the issue on the floor of both the Houses of the parliament in the ongoing budget session.

Adhikari said the Trinamool was raising objections on the voters list only in the constituencies where the BJP had secured a lead in successive elections since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

“I am requesting these voters not to respond to any such query. According to the rule the onus of proving whether the voter is a resident is on the complainant,” Adhikari said.

The leader of Opposition said the BJP too has prepared lists of “voters” in different district towns like Harishchandrapur, Haroharpara, Chapra, Karimnagar, Canning, Bhangar, Haroa, Minakha.

“We have not objected to the name of one bona fide Muslim voter in the state. Investigation has revealed several residents from Bangladesh had got their names included in the electoral rolls,” Adhikari said.

Adhikari will visit both Krishnagar and Bagdah after April 8 to speak to the voters who are facing the threat of being excluded from the electoral rolls.

The BJP state general secretary Jagannath Chattopadhyay said the party had been receiving such complaints from the border districts.

“There are eight border districts and in each block in these eight districts we will launch a movement after Ram Navami. The Trinamool is trying to strike out the names of Hindu Bengalis and Hindi-speaking Bengalis from the voters’ list,” Chattopadhyay said.

As an example of a Hindi-speaking Bengali, Chattopadhyay referred to absconding Trinamool leader Vinay Mishra, accused in the cattle-smuggling scam, who is reportedly hiding in the Vanuatu island.

“Mishra’s family has been residing in Bengal for three generations. They are Hindi-speaking Bengalis,” he said.