New Delhi: A delegation of Trinamool Congress MPs Friday met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and instructed him that he had “blood on his arms”, linking the deaths of no less than 39 folks together with 4 Sales space Degree Officers (BLOs) in West Bengal to the continuing Particular Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

The TMC delegation, comprising 5 Lok Sabha and 5 Rajya Sabha MPs, met the total bench of the Election Fee in Delhi in a gathering that lasted round one and a half hours.

Derek O’Brien pressured that the TMC was not against the idea of SIR, “however we’re strongly against the unplanned and heartless method through which the CEC and the Election Fee goes about their job, utterly heartless”.

On the assembly, the TMC delegation submitted a listing of names allegedly affected by SIR. Based on the celebration, there have been 39 deaths, together with 4 BLOs, because of the SIR. Moreover, 15 BLOs are present process medical therapy after falling in poor health because of the stress related to the train, the celebration claimed.

“Who will take duty for these lives misplaced? The Election Fee or CEC Gyanesh Kumar? We’ve got seen how the BLOs obtained inadequate coaching, subsequent to no help, had been burdened with unrealistic deadlines and pressured till a lot of them lastly succumbed to sickness or demise. Is the blood of those avoidable deaths not on the Chief Electoral Commissioners’ arms?” one TMC MP stated within the assembly.

Sources stated that among the many 5 questions raised by the delegation, one involved the “actual goal” of the SIR. It alleged that Bengalis had been being singled out and focused within the identify of cleansing up voter rolls, indicating that the celebration intends to make use of the Bengali id subject in pushing again towards the SIR forward of the 2026 West Bengal meeting polls.

TMC Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra later instructed reporters outdoors the EC workplace that the CEC feigned ignorance concerning the deaths that many within the Opposition have attributed to “inhuman strain” by the ECI.

“If infiltration is the difficulty, why are states like Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur, which border Bangladesh and Myanmar, neglected of the method? Even in Assam the EC did not institute the SIR, as an alternative selecting an eyewash by the identify of Particular Revision,” Moitra stated.

Section II of the SIR, introduced by the EC, covers 12 states and Union Territories, together with Uttar Pradesh, and election-bound West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

Assam additionally goes to polls in early 2026, however the EC excluded the state from this SIR spherical, mentioning that it’s topic to totally different citizenship provisions beneath the regulation and {that a} Supreme Court docket supervised citizenship verification course of, the Nationwide Register of Residents, is already underway there.

As a substitute, the EC has ordered a separate Particular Revision of electoral rolls in Assam, involving house-to-house verification by sales space degree officers moderately than the total SIR enumeration course of.

The TMC delegation additionally argued that if the identical electoral rolls “that the ECI now questions” had been ok for the 2024 normal elections, then they need to be acceptable now as nicely.

“How did these rolls abruptly grow to be unreliable inside a yr? And if the rolls actually are unreliable then why not dissolve the Lok Sabha that was elected by these unreliable voters,” Moitra stated.

The TMC MPs additionally raised the current modification within the standards for the appointment of Sales space Degree Brokers or BLAs. They’re appointed by political events to enhance the work of the BLOs, who’re normally authorities workers. Till the modification, a BLA needed to be a registered voter of the sales space the place they served.

Below the amended rule, BLAs don’t must be from the identical sales space however could be from any sales space throughout the meeting constituency. “Does this not reek of bias and partisan observe, which you search to deal with, finally to the detriment of your constitutional autonomy?” requested the delegation.

“In Bengal, BJP leaders are claiming that the names of 1 crore voters will probably be deleted from the rolls. The ECI has taken no cognisance of those feedback, nor have they countered the concern mongering by the BJP. That leads us to ask two questions. Is the ECI engaged on the command of the BJP? Is each sacrosanct provision now open to tampering to go well with a single political celebration’s agenda?” the TMC delegation added in its submission.

(Edited by Viny Mishra)

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Additionally learn: He didn’t sleep for days. Contained in the SIR strain that broke a Rajasthan BLO

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