The Bengal government employees who also serve as poll officials are caught between the two ruling parties at the Centre and the state, the BJP and the Trinamool.
A day after chief minister Mamata Banerjee questioned the Election Commission’s authority over the suspension of Bengal officials for alleged “lapses” in the preparation of electoral rolls, leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Suvendu Adhikari appealed to the government employees “not to get swayed by Mamata Banerjee’s crocodile tears.”
“Her refusal to register ECI-directed FIRs is not to protect West Bengal government employees, rather to shield I-PAC and its associates, who have infiltrated our electoral system as data entry operators,” Suvendu wrote in a post this afternoon, a little after Mamata addressed a rally at Jhargram on international indigenous people’s day.
“Over the years, they’ve perfected scientific rigging, enrolling fictitious voters, deleting Hindu voters’ names and adding illegal infiltrators; Bangladeshi Muslims to the voter lists. For the sake of the future of West Bengal, it’s time the WBCS officers perform their constitutional duties,” Suvendu added.
In her address Mamata on Thursday took off from where she had left on Wednesday, asserting that her government stands with its employees and questioning the constitutional validity of the EC’s actions.
The EC had on Tuesday suspended two Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), two Assistant EROs (AEROs), and a casual data entry operator for alleged lapses in preparing the electoral rolls in two districts.
The poll panel also directed that FIRs be filed against all five for dereliction of duty.
“We all know the EC can take action only from the date of announcement of elections,” the chief minister said, questioning the timing and legality of the directive, with the West Bengal Assembly elections not due until mid-2026. “There is a lot of time left for elections, do they think that they can browbeat anybody in the name of NRC?” she added.
The chief minister alleged that the EC was attempting to introduce the National Register of Citizens (NRC) “through the back door” under the guise of a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, similar to the one conducted in Bihar.
Highlighting her administration's support for government employees, Mamata stated, “My government is with all officers and other employees of the state government.”
She further asked, “Under which rule were the suspensions ordered?” asserting, “The Constitution does not provide for any such provision.”
The Trinamool’s leader in the Lok Sabha Abhishek Banerjee accused the EC of abandoning its constitutional neutrality and infringing upon the rights of genuine voters in the state.
“The EC also needs to understand and realise that it is an impartial, unbiased organisation and it has to operate within the ambit of the Constitution,” he said during a press conference in Kolkata before heading to Delhi to attend a meeting hosted by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
“Now the EC has taken a shameless role to snatch the voting rights of genuine voters,” he alleged, accusing the commission of being complicit in attempts to disenfranchise the people of Bengal.
“Yesterday, I saw a report that a residential certificate had been issued under the name of Donald Trump. You should ask the Election Commission about it instead of shooting questions at us,” Abhishek said.
The Trinamool supremo claimed that the EC was being manipulated by the BJP to suppress Bengali voices. “The EC is being used as a tool so that the established Bengalis of Bengal, who speak Bengali and live in Bengal, cannot exercise their voting rights,” he said. “It was voted to power in 2021 by 12 crore people of Bengal. The government is solely committed and accountable to the 12 crore people, not to any political party or any central government.”
