Thursday night witnessed high drama in West Bengal yet The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has alleged poll rigging in Kolkata, just hours after party chief Mamata Banerjee called on workers to “stay awake all night and guard the EVM strong rooms”.
Mamata Banerjee, who is the chief minister of the state, personally descended on various strong rooms after TMC candidates Kunal Ghosh and Shashi Banga conducted a dharna after alleging that the strong rooms were opened by the poll body along with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), without the presence of “relevant stakeholders”. West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal confronted Banerjee by citing the rule book.
Kunal Ghosh described the incident as a “mistake on the part of EC” and said it had been decided to tighten security outside the strong room, with no one breaking the seal or entering without officially informing.
“What happened today is a mistake on the part of the EC. It was decided that after today, no one will open the lock of the strong room and go inside without being informed. That was the first decision. What happened today was a mistake. They agreed that more CCTV cameras are needed there. It should be reflected on the screen. We have told them our observations. The dharna has been cancelled… Our team will monitor everything. This is our right, and we will do everything legally. We do not intend to do anything illegally,” Ghosh told the media.
“We opposed it when they were doing something illegal. We have one question: They opened the seal of the strong room without a hint, and we were opposed to that. Why is the BJP so upset? It means it has malicious intentions,” he added.
Mamata Banerjee on Thursday evening reached the counting center in Bhabanipur district, which houses the strong room for electronic voting machines used in the April 29 poll, citing suspicion of tampering with the machines. She entered the building with her election agent and stayed inside for hours
Refutation by the European Commission
West Bengal Chief Executive Manoj Kumar Agarwal told a press conference that Mamata Banerjee does not have access to any of the powerful chambers outside her constituency.
“The Prime Minister, who is nominated from Bhabanipur, is not a candidate from any of the seven seats from North Kolkata. She cannot go there,” he said.
Apart from the CEO, Election Commission officials rejected the TMC’s claims and said that the main strong rooms were securely secured and locked, and that segregation of ballot papers was taking place in the corridors of the strong rooms from 4 pm.
“Referring to the video circulating on social media: There are 7 air-conditioning strong rooms inside the Kgudiram Anushilan Kendra; all of them were duly sealed in the presence of candidates/election agents and the Comptroller General after the completion of polling yesterday. The last strong room was sealed in the morning around 5.15 am,” PTI quoted an Election Commission official as saying.
“All the strong rooms containing the polled electronic voting machines are securely secured and sealed. There is another strong room in the same building for postal balloting where we kept the AC wise ballot papers as did the various polling staff and the ETBPS (Electronic Transmitted Postal Ballot System),” the official added.
The officials said that the poll committee notified all observers and registration offices and asked the registration offices to inform their candidates and agents about this matter.
Mamata’s warning
Early on Friday, Mamata Banerjee warned against any attempt to tamper with the counting process, hours after she visited an EVM strong room in Bhabanipur, alleging possible misconduct. She said that only one person will be allowed to enter the designated counting area.
“The candidate or one agent can stay upstairs,” she told reporters. She also suggested installing a surveillance camera for the media.
She stressed the need for transparency, saying, “It is necessary to maintain transparency. People’s voices must be protected. I rushed here after receiving complaints. The central forces did not allow me to enter at first.”
She added, in a strict tone ahead of the counting of votes on May 4, “If there is any plan to tamper with the counting process, it will not be tolerated.”
BJP attacks Mamata and TMC
The BJP’s candidate for Maniktala constituency, Tapas Roy, accused the TMC of creating a “false narrative”. He said that he reached near the strong room after receiving news of the TMC’s dharna. Responding to the TMC’s allegations that the BJP was creating a stir amid a peaceful protest, Roy said the TMC workers “directed slogans at us and verbally abused us”.
“It was this powerful room. We heard on the news that a leader is coming here, and that two TMC candidates are sitting on the dharna here. They came in and gave a byte. This has never happened before. Hearing that, I and candidate Santosh Pathak came here. Then Poornima Chakraborty, Vijay Ojha and Ritesh Tiwari joined us. One needs to prepare before being defeated. They said something is happening inside. I heard that the DEO (District Election) “The officer) received them and showed them everything. So, there was chaos here when we reached here. The TMC workers shouted slogans and verbally insulted us.”
“Kolkata Police officials told us that such things have never happened before in the strong room… They (TMC) are preparing a false narrative and lying to the common people. This is wrong. We have spoken to the Anti-Corruption Department. Everything is fine. We spoke to the Anti-Corruption Department, other officers and police officers about why a particular political party was allowed here. They should not have done this… We will also talk to the Commissioner,” he added.
BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya claimed that the TMC had admitted defeat.
“TMC has admitted defeat before its defeat. Mamata Banerjee knows the situation of TMC. The government will be out of power, but with that, the party will also be gone in a few months. So, this is the flickering of the flame before it goes out. How long will the people of West Bengal see this drama? It will have no impact,” he said.
He added: “Shashi Banga lost the elections. Kunal Ghosh is a journalist, and he also knows what the result will be.”
