Police complaints lodged against CEC in Bengal over SIR 'harassment'

Kolkata, Several complaints were lodged at a police station in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district on Friday against the chief electoral officer over alleged harassment of people during the SIR process, a senior officer said.

Seven people, accompanied by Canning Purba legislator Saokat Molla, filed their complaints at the Jibantala Police Station, alleging that they faced harassment during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in the state, he said.

"We have received seven complaints against the CEC over alleged harassment during the ongoing SIR and will examine them," the officer said.


Speaking to reporters, Molla said seven people from his constituency filed complaints against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for their alleged harassment during the electoral roll revision exercise.

"About 33,000 names were recommended for deletion in my constituency in the past three days. The move was aimed at disenfranchising genuine voters. Many of these people possess documents and have already attended SIR hearings," the TMC legislator said.

Molla claimed that nearly 90 per cent of these names belonged to the Muslim community and accused Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of "acting as a broker for the BJP".

"The CEC is orchestrating a planned conspiracy to reduce minority voters," he alleged.

A local BJP leader, however, questioned how the TMC MLA came to know about deletions when no such list had been officially published.

"He should be aware that an FIR cannot be filed against the head of the Election Commission of India," the BJP functionary said.