A BJP leader in Tamluk, East Midnapore, who was appointed as Booth Level Agent (BLA), has been arrested for allegedly attempting to remove the names of 343 living voters from the electoral roll by deliberately submitting faulty Form 7 applications.
The accused, Amit Mandal, a BJP leader from Pitulsaha village in Tamluk, is alleged to have submitted Form 7 for 343 voters linked to booth number 242 in Padumbasan. Form 7 is used to seek deletion of names from the voter list in cases such as death or permanent relocation.
The arrest was made acting on a complaint filed by a Booth Level Officer (BLO), the police registered an FIR and produced the accused before a court, which remanded him to seven days’ judicial custody. Notably, the arrested BJP leader is also the husband of local Panchayet member Sahid Matangini Block 2 no. Gram Panchayet, who is also a BJP leader.
“I came to know that a bunch of Form 7 was filled-up from my booth. The list included names of my family members as well. However, all the voters listed in the forms are alive and are genuine voters. All the members of my family, in fact, are passport holders. I believe that the one who did such a thing was ingenuine so I had to lodge a complaint,” said Asfaq Ali Beg, BLO for booth number 243 in Tamluk constituency.
Several of the names targeted for deletion reportedly belonged to the family members of the BLO assigned to the booth, Asfaq Ali Beg. Among those named were his mother, Arjuman Laila—a teacher and recipient of the Education Ratna award—along with his sister, brother, and several others, all of whom are alive and eligible voters.
The irregularities came to light when Asfaq Ali Beg discovered that Form 7 applications had been submitted in the names of his family members. He immediately alerted the administration, prompting an inquiry that led to the registration of a police case and Mandal’s subsequent arrest.
“Mandal illegally filled up Form 7 by listing a lot of locals as death or shifted. The administration has taken steps to curb this irregularity. We are thankful,” said Sumit Samanta, local TMC leader.
However, BJP has denied the occurrence of such incident. Speaking on the matter, Sukanta Chowdhury, local BJP leader stated, “This is a violation of people’s rights. Police is acting on direct orders of the state administration. The EC has a set of regulations and Mandal felt that there was a need for objection, so, he raised it. If there was no need to adhere to the rules then the Election Commission would not have given out such instruction in the first place. This is outrageous,” Chowdhury said.
Officials have also flagged the fact that Mandal’s residence is located nearly 12 kilometres away from booth number 242, raising questions about how he accessed voter details and on what basis he sought the deletion of such a large number of names. The district administration has launched a detailed investigation to determine the intent behind the filings and whether any larger manipulation of the electoral roll was attempted.
