NEW DELHI: A Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation met the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Friday, against the backdrop of recent suicides and deaths of booth level officers (BLOs) amid ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) exercise in the state.The delegation led by TMC MP Derek O’Brien submitted a list of 40 dead including 17 BLOs “directly linked to SIR”, slamming the EC saying “that you have blood on your hands”.
“We shared the list of deaths and told the EC that you have blood on your hands,” the Rajya Sabha MP said. He added that the CEC was completely surprised by the list.The meeting takes place in the wake of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s letter to CEC Gyanesh Kumar, urging his “immediate intervention” on two recent issues.She had pointed to the state chief electoral officer’s instructions barring district election officials from using contractual data-entry personnel and Bangla Sahayata Kendra staff for the SIR of the voters’ list or any other election-related tasks, as well as a proposal to establish polling stations inside private residential complexes.The delegation comprised TMC Lok Sabha MPs Satabdi Roy, Kalyan Banerjee, Pratima Mondal, Sajda Ahmed and Mahua Moitra, along with Rajya Sabha members Dola Sen, Mamata Thakur, Saket Gokhale and Prakash Chik Barik.The SIR process is currently being conducted across 12 states and Union Territories, including West Bengal.
