Escalating her offensive against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday raised the possibility of his impeachment, alleging bias and misconduct by the poll panel during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Addressing a press conference at New Banga Bhawan in Chanakyapuri, Mamata said there was a constitutional provision to impeach the chief election commissioner, even while acknowledging that the Opposition lacked the numbers to initiate such a move.
“If something is genuine, practical and in favour of the people… we also want him to be impeached. We don’t have the numbers. There is a provision for impeachment. It will be recorded,” she said, adding that if such a possibility were to come up, she would take her MPs into confidence and ask them to act in accordance.
Her remarks came a day after she walked out of a meeting with CEC Gyanesh Kumar at Nirvachan Sadan on Monday evening, claiming she had been “humiliated and insulted” during the interaction, ultimately forcing her to “boycott” it. The meeting lasted nearly an hour and was attended by Trinamool Congress MPs Abhishek Banerjee and Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, along with a 12-member delegation, comprising of victim families who allegedly lost their loved ones to SIR related deaths.
Responding to questions on what transpired, Mamata alleged that the chief election commissioner did not engage with her concerns. “He never replied. He was threatening us,” she said.
Mamata also launched a political broadside, asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party would fail to win power in West Bengal after the Assembly elections. “BJP will not come to power in Bengal. The people hate the BJP. The voters of BJP are going to vote for us,” she said.
Neither the chief election commissioner nor other members of the Election Commission of India have publicly responded to Mamata’s accusations so far. However, according to various news reports attributed to sources within the commission offered a sharply different account of the Monday meeting, claiming that Trinamool representatives had used abusive and threatening language towards the commission, the CEC and other election officials.
According to one official as per the said sources, the poll panel reiterated its long-pending demands to the West Bengal government, including the transfer of certain officials, action against errant officers, complaints of hooliganism by Trinamool cadres, and the need to enhance the honorarium paid to booth-level officers (BLOs).
