Trinamool Congress MLA Saokat Molla on Friday lodged a complaint at the Jibantala police station in South 24-Parganas against chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, alleging a targeted conspiracy to disenfranchise minority voters.

The move by the Canning East MLA follows the identification of "logical discrepancies" involving around 33,000 voters in his constituency during the special intensive revision (SIR) process, barely a week before the scheduled publication of the final electoral roll.

Molla has said there is a similar conspiracy to disenfranchise minority voters in the Bhangar Assembly segment, where he serves as the party’s observer. He said multiple constituencies in South 24-Parganas were the targets of the alleged plot.

According to him, an additional 22,000 voters in Bhangar have been pushed into a “doubtful” category, fuelling anxiety among residents and reinforcing Trinamool’s charge of a biased federal oversight ahead of the Assembly polls.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Molla said: “In the first phase, notices were issued to one lakh voters in Canning East for hearings by the EC. The hearing process was completed and all required documents were submitted to satisfy the commission. But in the past three days, fresh questions were raised about 33,000 voters, of whom nearly 90 per cent belong to the minority community. Most of them are linked to parents whose names appeared on the benchmark 2002 voter list, and their ancestors were also listed.”

He added: “This time, there is no scope for any further hearing, as the EC’s SIR portal will be closed for uploading on Saturday. The EROs and AEROs have been left with only two options — ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ — to confirm authenticity or reject the documents submitted during hearings.”

“This has left these 33,000 people in Canning East in an uncertain state about their enrolment in the voter list,” Molla said, describing the development as a deliberate attempt to exclude genuine minority voters.

“I have therefore lodged a police complaint seeking an investigation into the motive and conspiracy of Gyanesh Kumar as a first step before taking the battle to court. Some others have also lodged similar complaints,” he said, claiming that even the status of names within his own family had come under doubt because of what he described as the commission’s actions.

“Our point is clear. It appears to be a planned effort to exclude the names of minority people from the voters’ list. People whose parents and ancestors have lived here for decades and whose names were present on the 2002 voters’ list have been pushed into the doubtful category, leaving the final decision solely to the EROs and AEROs with almost no time left,” Molla said.

Alleging administrative pressure, he added: “EROs and AEROs are not eager because they are panicked about suspension. There is no scope left even for a person to know what shortcomings have been found in their documents.”

Sources, however, indicated that the EC had recently issued instructions requiring electoral registration officers (EROs) and assistant EROs (AEROs) to record specific reasons if they disagreed with observations made by roll observers or micro-observers who flag cases lacking proper documentation before approving them for inclusion in the final voter list.

Molla said all the 33,000 persons in Canning had submitted the prescribed documents during the SIR hearings. "It is not clear why questions are now being raised about their identity,” added the MLA.