Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Admitting what could turn out to be a major gaffe, Chief Electoral Officer Debashis Sen today said 11 court cases have been filed against the Election Commission by voters in the state, alleging their names were deleted by the
Commission from the electoral rolls.
Deputy Election Commissioner Anant Kumar has already announced that the Commission would start an inquiry into the huge number of names deleted after the final rolls were published on February 22. According to Sen, as many as 2.55 lakh names were struck off the rolls in Murshidabad, Birbhum and Burdwan districts, which will go to the polls in the fourth phase on May 3. He added that 57,000 names were also included in the rolls.
Meanwhile, Sen said he had received complaints from Trinamool Congress against Kolkata Mayor Bikash Bhattacharya, who was allowed to caste his vote by showing his PAN card though he was issued a photo I-card by the EC. “We received a complaint regarding this (but) I can’t say anything more,” he said.
He also said he had received a complaint from the Trinamool Congress about CPI(M) workers visiting houses of voters at Jadavpur constituency with a dummy Electronic Voting Machine on the eve of polls on April 27 and exhorting voters to vote for the party. “We are investigating it,” he said. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is the CPI(M) candidate from Jadavpur constituency.
