Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Friday alleged that BDOs and SDOs in connivance with district magistrates had intentionally removed the names of several BJP workers from the voter list, particularly in Abhishek Banerjee's Diamond Harbour constituency.
Adhikari, who met chief electoral officer Aariz Aftab with seven voters whose names were missing from the voter list, alleged: “There are several BDOs and SDOs who on verbal instruction of district magistrates removed names of BJP workers from the voter list. The highest number of such incidents happened in Diamond Harbour.”
This year, the Election Commission has published the final voter list on January 22. Normally, the final list is published on January 5 each year, but this year the date was extended to January 22 for further revisions, the poll panel said.
Adhikari, flanked by party leaders Jagannath Chattopadhyay and Sisir Bajoria, claimed that despite the poll panel revising the dates, numerous inaccuracies remained in the final voter list, such as missing names and false entries of online voters.
“In the Falta legislative constituency area many office-bearers of the BJP have been excluded,” Adhikari added. "We have requested the chief election officer to take cognisance of these irregularities and organise a hearing on a single day."
Adhikari, who earlier skipped the all-party meeting and business advisory meeting convened by Speaker Biman Banerjee in the Assembly before the state budget session, said: “We boycotted it in protest. It has been the convention since 1964 that the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee is nominated from the Opposition. We gave six names but this government unjustly nominated Mukul Roy and Krishna Kalyani.”
Roy and Kalyani won on BJP tickets but switched to Trinamul. Technically, they remain BJP MLAs.
At the all-party meeting, Banerjee said the budget session would be held between February 5 and 10 and the budget would be placed on February 8.