West Bengal elections: TMC alleges strongroom breaches, BJP mocks claim

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress and BJP traded allegations over EVM strongroom security on Friday, with a delegation from CM Mamata Banerjee’s party meeting Election Commission officials to demand answers on alleged CCTV blackouts and sealed rooms being opened without party representatives.

BJP dismissed the complaints as a desperate search for “excuses” by a party headed for defeat, setting the stage for a tense May 4 counting day.

The sharpest charge came from TMC’s Shyampukur candidate Shashi Panja, who told reporters after meeting EC officials that her party had “reason to be suspicious” about people caught on camera entering strongrooms at central Kolkata’s Khudiram Anusilan Kendra.





“In a footage from camera no. 17, we noticed people inside strongrooms that had been sealed in the presence of our agents. If you are opening the door, all parties need to be told about this,” Panja said. She said pink postal ballot envelopes were visible in the footage and that no political party’s representative was there when the seal was broken.

Panja also questioned the EC’s statement that all parties had been emailed about postal ballot sorting scheduled for Thursday at 4pm. “We wouldn’t have said anything had someone from each of the parties been there. None was present. Then why did you break the seal and open that particular room?” she said. “The moment we, from TMC, noticed human activity there, it became kind of a panic situation.”

Panja, mayor Firhad Hakim and councillor Ashim Bose also sought from EC a comprehensive report on alleged CCTV malfunctions in strongrooms across Bengal, unabridged and unedited recordings with detailed logs of all interruption periods, and unrestricted access for authorised representatives to surveillance feeds.

The visit to EC office followed a meeting between Mamata and TMC’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee at her Kalighat home. She had camped at the Bhowanipore EVM strongroom the previous evening, triggering a protest by BJP that culminated in an altercation with TMC members and supporters.

Mamata and Abhishek convened an emergency online meeting with TMC counting agents from all 291 seats where they have fielded nominees at 4pm Saturday.

Leader of the opposition in state, Suvendu Adhikari, who is also BJP’s candidate for Bhowanipore, posted a CCTV grab of the area outside the Sakhawat Memorial School strongroom in south Kolkata on his X handle, insisting his election agent and advocate Suryanil Das had kept Mamata “under strict surveillance so that she couldn’t resort to dishonest means”.

Suvendu visited the strongroom Friday evening, terming it “routine work” that did not need cameras following him.

BJP’s Dilip Ghosh was blunter. “TMC is now sure of its defeat. They are trying to shift focus by staying in the strongrooms. They are complaining about everything. This is a clear sign that TMC is being defeated,” he declared. Ghosh accused TMC of deploying goons to rig the polls.