Siliguri/Cooch Behar, March 13 -- The Darjeeling district Trinamool Congress (TMC) has raised an alarm over alleged discrepancies in the voter list, accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of manipulating the electoral roll in the district. During a Press conference on Thursday in Siliguri, Papiya Ghosh, the TMC Darjeeling district president, stated that the names of several voters appear in multiple states, with most belonging to BJP-ruled states including Maharashtra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other regions.
Over a span of five days, the party discovered 29 fake voters whose names had been registered in two different states, 558 deceased voters whose names had not been removed from the list yet and 240 voters who had voted in the previous elections but found their names missing this year in the entire district.
"We uncovered this data only in five days and we are sure the number will be high in the coming days. We believe that the BJP is manipulating the voter list in a well-planned manner," said Ghosh.
Meanwhile, Gautam Deb, the Mayor of Siliguri who was also present at the press meet, criticised Governor CV Ananda Bose regarding his comment on the fake voter issue. On Wednesday, the Governor stated that the Election Commission is the appropriate organisation to handle such matters. "Governor is a constitutional position. He does not have the authority to oversee these matters. Instead, he is acting as the spokesperson for the BJP in the state," Deb added. The TMC leaders demanded that the Election Commission release a fresh updated voter list after rectification.
Meanwhile, the Cooch Behar District Trinamool Congress has intensified its campaign against alleged fake voters, identifying the highest number in the Mathabhanga Assembly Constituency. Addressing a Press conference at the District Trinamool Congress office on Thursday, party district president Abhijit Dey Bhowmik revealed that
during a door-to-door survey conducted from March 5 to March 10, a total of 4,072 fake voters were identified
across the district.
"What is particularly alarming is that 4,024 of these fake voters have been detected in the Mathabhanga Assembly Constituency alone,"
Bhowmik stated. He attributed this unusually high number to the BJP performance in the last Panchayat elections, where the party secured six out of ten Gram Panchayats in Mathabhanga-II Block. "Such irregularities could have been orchestrated during that period. However, it is ultimately the responsibility of the Election Commission to investigate the matter," he added.
Bhowmik also pointed to similar concerns in the Tufanganj Assembly Constituency, which shares a border with Assam. "Many of the fake voters identified in Tufanganj appear to be residents of Assam. We suspect that these individuals could be mobilized during elections," he alleged.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.