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Kolkata, Nov 1 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) over alleged incidents of two Block Development Officers (BDOs) in West Bengal’s West Burdwan district allowing the local Trinamool Congress leadership to use their office infrastructure to attend the party’s virtual organizational meeting on Friday, which was chaired by party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
CPI-M politburo member and party’s West Bengal secretary Mohammad Salim had written a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal requesting him to investigate the matter and accordingly take appropriate legal action against the concerned BDO.
Along with his complaint, Salim had also attached supporting evidence to prove the allegations in this regard.
“I have requested the CEO of West Bengal to take immediate action against those BDOs. How dare they allow party meetings to be held in BDO offices?” the CPI-M politburo member asked.
In a virtual organizational meeting chaired by Abhishek Banerjee on Friday, he fixed the organizational responsibilities of Trinamool Congress leaders, elected officials, state cabinet members and grassroots party workers for the special intensive review (SIR) in West Bengal, the first phase of which will begin from November 4.
At the meeting, the Trinamool Congress general secretary directed the party’s booth-level agents (BLAs) to shadow the booth-level officers (BLOs) appointed by the ECI during the SIR exercise.
A party leader who attended the meeting said, “In the virtual meeting, it was also decided that Trinamool Congress will open area-wise help desks across the state to assist voters from November 4 and these helpdesks will continue to function till the entire SIR exercise is over. There will be a total of 6,200 help desks across the state. These helpdesks will function between 9 am to 5 pm daily from November 4 to December 4.”
The last time SIR was conducted in West Bengal was in 2002.
The present SIR is being conducted taking the voter list of 2002 as the basis.
SIR has been a controversial issue in West Bengal since its inception.
Trinamool Congress had described the SIR as an indirect move to implement NRC in West Bengal.
On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party had claimed that the Trinamool Congress was opposing the SIR due to the fear that the names of illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators would be removed from the voter list.
–IANS
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