Trinamool Floats Impeachment Threat Against CEC
TMC to reach out to Opposition parties amid SIR row ahead of Bengal polls
- Trinamool Congress to consult Opposition on impeaching CEC Gyanesh Kumar
- Party alleges misuse of SIR exercise to delete voters in TMC-held seats
- Kalyan Banerjee calls CEC’s conduct “incorrect” and unconstitutional
- Mamata claims up to 1 lakh voters targeted in Bhabanipur alone
GG News Bureau
Kolkata, 4th Feb: The All India Trinamool Congress is set to approach other political parties to explore the possibility of initiating impeachment proceedings against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, party sources said on Tuesday, amid an escalating confrontation over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.
The move comes a day after a sharp standoff between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the top leadership of the Election Commission of India at the poll body’s office in Delhi.
Confirming the party’s stand, Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee told reporters in the national capital that the conduct of the Chief Election Commissioner in carrying out the SIR exercise was “incorrect” and warranted serious action.
“We are considering impeaching the Chief Election Commissioner because of the way he is conducting the SIR. This affects the voting rights of every citizen in the country,” Kalyan Banerjee said.
Earlier in the day, Mamata Banerjee alleged selective targeting by the Election Commission, claiming that voter deletions under the SIR exercise were disproportionately high in assembly constituencies represented by Trinamool MLAs.
“In constituencies held by BJP MLAs, only about 3,000 to 4,000 names are deleted. But in Trinamool-held constituencies, the number ranges from 40,000 to one lakh,” she alleged.
Citing her own seat, Banerjee said that in Bhabanipur, nearly 40,000 voters had already been dropped from the draft electoral rolls. “Their final target is to delete one lakh names from Bhabanipur,” she claimed.
With the West Bengal Assembly elections approaching, the SIR exercise has now turned into a high-voltage political flashpoint, setting the stage for a wider Opposition mobilisation against the Election Commission and raising the stakes around electoral credibility in the state.
