‘Even killers get a hearing’: 54 lakh names struck off voter rolls without notice, says CM Mamata Banerjee

KOLKATA: About 54 lakh Bengal voters have been deleted from electoral rolls without being given a chance to defend themselves, CM Mamata Banerjee alleged on Tuesday adding that even murderers are given a hearing by courts.


The voters that Banerjee was referring to are those who have been put on the Election Commission’s absentee-shifted-dead (ASD) list. CM Banerjee claimed a “bulk” of these voters were genuine and many of them were married women who had changed their surnames and shifted residences.





“Even murderers have the right to defend themselves. The 54 lakh who have been deleted unilaterally can fill Form 6 or Form 8. But no one knows who figures in this deleted list. They (EC) have not shared this list with any party. BJP might have received it. If you do not reveal whose names have been deleted, how will people know? Many are sitting without worry, assuming their names are still on the (voter) list. The draft list that was recently released runs into thousands of pages. It is physically impossible for people to go through such massive lists,” she said at a press meet in Nabanna.


Alleging that names were being deleted with the help of AI from EC’s Delhi office in the presence of a BJP IT officer inside the CEO’s office, Banerjee said women were particularly being targeted. “Many of the deleted names belong to married women whose surnames changed after marriage or whose residential addresses shifted from their maternal homes to their in-laws’ homes,” she said.


Banerjee also questioned why Bengal was being singled out for appointment of micro-observers. “Micro-observers are not allowed in any other state. Why only Bengal? The micro-observers are BJP’s lackeys. It’s BJP’s decision to not have BLA-2s,” she alleged.CM Banerjee said, “We have concrete information. Micro-observers have been planted. They are labelling everyone appearing for hearing as ‘anti-national’ and marking ‘no evidence found’ against their name. No receipts are provided. People are carrying birth certificates, Aadhaar cards, domicile certificates, PAN cards to hearings. Yet they are being arbitrarily told they are not eligible.”


Slamming BJP for bringing people from outside Bengal and attempting to make them Bengal voters, the CM said, “BJP plans to delete voters in bulk. They have plans to bring in voters from Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand to vote in Bengal. BJP’s plan is to exclude more names. In each police station, names of 10,000 people have been blacklisted from the ERO and DM offices.”


The CM alleged the SIR hearing was full of flaws. “We have reports that among those summoned for hearings, lakhs of names are being blocked and deleted. This is a serious conspiracy,” she said. She also claimed that ‘logical discrepancy’ was not part of the original SIR verification process but was “included as an afterthought to add to deletions”. Banerjee further alleged that the “BJP-EC nexus” was planning to remove another one crore names from the final rolls.


Banerjee also said that she wants all Rajbanshis and Matuas to vote. “For that there is no need to make them write that they have come from Bangladesh in 2024. The provisional CAA has no value. A different game is going on. I will urge Matuas to fight for their rights. You should go to BLO offices and submit your names if your names have been deleted. I would urge everyone to go to BLO offices, ERO offices, or DM offices and submit your complaint if your name is deleted. Or, ask them whether your name is there in the list. Make sure to take receipts of the documents that you submit. Do not depend on CAA because it is provisional,” she said.