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Kolkata, Oct 31 (IANS) A video has gone viral purportedly showing a Trinamool Congress district president threatening that booth level officers (BLOs) will be tied up if they fail to prepare the complete voter list since 2000 while conducting door-to-door verification for the upcoming special intensive revision of voter lists starting from November 4.
“Today, we announce on behalf of the Trinamool Congress that every BLO, who is an agent of the Election Commission, should come with the complete voter list for the year 2000. Otherwise, we will tie them up,” Trinamool Congress Cooch Behar district president Girindranath Barman was heard saying while speaking to the media in the video.
Barman also said that it is the duty of the Election Commission and not of any political party to explain why any name is missing from the list.
“Since the BLOs are representatives of the Election Commission, we will tie them up, as our leader Abhishek Banerjee had said. This is a national problem, not any political party’s issue. Not a single legitimate voter should be left out. Minority votes are in danger,” Barman was heard saying in the footage.
Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, shared the video on social media tagging the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal and sought their intervention.
However, IANS could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
The official alleged that such comments are a direct attack on the authority of the Election Commission and an attempt to intimidate its field level officials.
“This is not an isolated statement by some outside thug. This is symptomatic of TMC’s scorched-earth strategy of weaponising the particularly intensive vetting process. They do not want to clean up our electoral rolls of ghosts, infiltrators and fraudsters who have kept West Bengal’s electoral rolls bloated for decades,” the official said.
“How can BLOs, often ordinary government employees, do their duty by going door-to-door, when TMC soldiers are openly vowing to tie and tie them?” He asked question.
–IANS
Source/PGH