TMC, BJP lodge pleas with EC over conduct of free and fair polls in West Bengal

On Friday, both the Trinamool Congress and the BJP reached out to the EC raising their concern over the conduct of free and fair polls in West Bengal. First, it was a delegation of TMC leaders –– Yashwant Sinha, Sugata Roy, Mahua Moitra and others –– which reached out to the EC in the afternoon. The leaders submitted a memorandum complaining of the EC’s ‘partisan’ and ‘biased’ approach in the West Bengal elections.

The TMC leaders complained over the EC’s decision to deploy only central forces within the first 100 metres of the polling booth and the state police force not being permitted to be present within that distance. The TMC wanted to know whether it has been done only for West Bengal. “There is a language barrier as central forces are mostly from outside and that might scare the voters in exercising their voting rights,” Yashwant Sinha, TMC vice president, told ET. “The EC assured us that they would ask the central forces chiefs to sensitise the forces on the ground.”TMC also reiterated its demand to the tallying of all the VVPAT machines in any assembly constituency.

“The EC assured us that EVM machines are not hackable and the chip installed in each EVM machine is not programmable,” TMC leader Mahua Moitra told media persons. “They also said that it is purely for logistical reasons, adding that 100% of VVPAT checking would lead to a delay of a minimum 48 to 72 hours and even more in some cases in announcing the result. That’s why they are sticking to the 5% matching of VVPAT machines in each constituency.”


Later, a BJP delegation, led by Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and general secretary Bhupender Yadav, also reached out to the EC. “For the past few days, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been levelling false allegations on an institution like EC saying it works for BJP. This is an insult to a great institution like EC. We demanded that the EC should take note of this. We have been assured by the commission that they look into the matter,” said Bhupender Yadav after the meeting.