Kolkata, Nov 28 (PTI) Escalating the TMC’s confrontation with the Election Commission, the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Friday accused the poll panel of planting “selective leaks” and demanded that it release full CCTV footage and all evidence linked to West Bengal’s ongoing SIR exercise.
Charging the Commission with “outright lies”, Banerjee posted on X that the EC was hiding behind “motivated leaks” while falsely claiming to have rebutted the TMC’s allegations.
If the Commission “truly believes in transparency”, he said, it must make public the entire set of materials it claims to possess instead of drip-feeding curated information.
“The Election Commission is deliberately planting selective leaks. These assertions are not just misleading, they are OUTRIGHT LIES,” he wrote, insisting that the poll body immediately “release the full CCTV footage and every piece of evidence” rather than hiding behind motivated leaks.
“Anything less only exposes their bad faith,” he said.
Banerjee added that while the TMC had placed five basic questions before the Commission, it could “take as many days as it wants” to answer.
The party, he added, had “enough digital evidence” to prove how the EC’s narrative was being “distorted through planted, fabricated leaks”.
Warning the EC, Banerjee said, “So THINK TWICE before you choose to pick a fight with West Bengal and @AITCofficial.” Without naming Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, he said, “I understand your frustration, Mr SIR, but facts do not bend to convenience. If energy is available for planting stories, surely it can be redirected to answering the five simple questions. Your Time starts NOW!” The TMC’s sharpened offensive came hours after a delegation of its leaders met the full bench of the Election Commission in New Delhi and alleged that 41 SIR-related deaths had occurred in the state so far, including those of four Booth Level Officers.
The party said several victims had died under severe work pressure, with some allegedly driven to suicide by “inhuman deadlines” and near-continuous administrative demands.
TMC leaders told the Commission in New Delhi that BLOs were being forced to shoulder an “impossible workload” with inadequate training, limited support and little concern for their health.
They claimed that the SIR process had devolved into an “administrative punishment regime”, leaving “blood on the hands” of the poll panel chief.
Banerjee’s post sharpened these charges, questioning why West Bengal alone was subjected to an intrusive verification drive while other states bordering Bangladesh and Myanmar faced no such exercise.
He had earlier this month asked how electoral rolls that were “good enough to elect the country’s Lok Sabha just last year” had suddenly become suspect. If the rolls were indeed unreliable, he asked, “why not dissolve the Lok Sabha elected by these unreliable voters?” With the SIR triggering statewide unrest, administrative fatigue and a deepening political face-off, the TMC’s confrontation with the Commission moved decisively into open warfare, setting the stage for yet another flashpoint ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls. PTI PNT NN
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.