Trinamul general secretary and Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday demanded that the Election Commission release the list of voters with “logical discrepancies” in the enumeration forms submitted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

“On the day the draft electoral rolls were published, the EC said 1.36 crore voters had logical discrepancies in their forms. Where is this list? Why is the commission not publishing this list? If there are one crore Rohingyas in Bengal, release the list,” Abhishek said during a news conference on Saturday. “I will go to Delhi on 31 December to meet the chief election commissioner.”

The draft electoral roll for Bengal ahead of next summer’s Assembly polls was published on 16 December with around 58 lakh names deleted from the previous list.

Four days before the draft rolls were published the commission had flagged 1.67 crore forms having “logical discrepancies” in the enumeration forms.

Out of these 1.67 crore voters, the EC had identified in the case of around 85 lakh voters the names of the parents appeared as a mismatch when linked to the 2002 voters list, the last when SIR was carried out in the state.

After the draft rolls were published the commission had revised the figure to 1.36crore.

“It took the booth-level officers around a month to complete the process. By what magic did the commission arrive at this figure and that too hours after the draft roll was published?” asked Abhishek.

Abhishek claimed an official in the EC whom he identified as Seema Khanna had admitted in a private chat the “logical discrepancy” figure was erroneous.

“I have the screenshots of her messages. Who is this woman? On whose instructions is she working? If I am lying she can file a case against me. We will submit this before the Supreme Court. But the commission has to release the names of these 1.36 crore names. They have the right to know why their names are being deleted. What is the logical discrepancy in their enumeration forms?” asked Abhishek.

For nearly nine months now, several Trinamool delegations had met the commission officials at Delhi’s Nirvachan Sadan. The last of this meeting was in November, when a team of Trinamool parliamentarians had met the full bench of the EC in Delhi.

Abhishek said the commission should send the list of the voters with “logical discrepancies” to all the political parties.

“The political parties also have to verify whether the data published by the commission is correct. We have a list of 100 voters from the districts of Bengal who have been marked as dead in the draft electoral rolls. One of them is a Trinamool councillor in Dankuni municipality,” the Trinamool general secretary said.

Abhishek in the other states where the SIR process is on the average voters being deleted were between 8.76 per cent to 12.57 per cent.

“In most of the states the deadline was extended but not in Bengal,” said Abhishek. “Teams are being sent to Bengal, but not in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat or any other state where the process is on. Bengal has been singled out.”