West Bengal LoP Suvendu Adhikari accuses CM Mamata Banerjee of threatening BLOs

Kolkata: Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) complaining against West Bengal Chief Minister's indirect threat and intimidation of the BLOs. Meanwhile, West Bengal- Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) made voter lists from the 2002 electoral roll revision available online.

Adhikari said that “Mamata Banerjee’s assertion that BLOs are merely State Govt Employees and her attempt to intimidate and manipulate the electoral process by instructing BLOs to ensure that no names are removed from the Voter List, is clearly an unauthorized attempt to dilute the Voter Lists for political gain.”

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, during her administrative meeting on Monday, said that the BLOs went for training in Delhi and she was not aware. She also pointed out that BLOs were state government employees and will also remain so after the polls. They should stay alert and keep in mind that not a single voter’s name gets deleted during roll revision, if SIR is implemented in Bengal, Banerjee has said.


“This is unacceptable. How can elections be fair if the Chief Minister pressures officials and challenges the ECI’s autonomy? It is a direct attack on our democracy. I have written to the Election Commissioner of India, urging the ECI to take suo moto cognizance of her remarks that interfere with the duties of Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and undermine the ECI’s authority,” Adhikari said.

Meanwhile, the 2002 voters’ list of some districts has been uploaded online on the website of the West Bengal-Chief Electoral Officer (CEO). Sources said that the list that has been published on the website of the of the State’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) contains the names of 11 districts — Coochbehar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, Uttar Dinajpur, Dakshin Dinajpur and Malda in North Bengal and Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly, Medinipur and Bankura in the south.