Ahead of the West Bengal assembly elections, the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday wrote to the state's chief secretary stating that "attempts are being made to use the postal ballot as a mode to ensure proxy votes in favour of the ruling party".
The letter that was written by West Bengal BJP leaders Mukul Roy, Swapan Dasgupta, Sabyasachi Dutta and Shishir Bajoria said, "We would like to draw your attention to an extremely critical issue that is plaguing the build-up to the first phase of voting of the ensuing Vidhan Sabha elections, of attempts being made to use postal ballots as a mode to ensure proxy votes/Chappa votes in favour of the ruling party i.e. the Trinamool Congress."
In the letter, the West Bengal BJP leaders further stated that they had written to the Kolkata Police Commissioner on the subject matter giving names of the offenders.
"On this subject matter, we had written to the Commissioner of Police, Kolkata on 1.3.2021 with our concerns, giving names of the offending Police officers. The modus operandi of this sinister operation is that under the banner of the Police Welfare Association, voter and Adhaar cards of the police personnel are being collected of all ranks. These details will be used to collect the postal ballots and in turn, affect proxy votes, the letter said.
The letter also alleged that despite directions issued by the Kolkata Commissioner to ensure no irregularities take place in the distribution of postal ballots, the police welfare association is conducting the exercise in a shameless manner.
The letter further read, "The Commissioner of Police on March 3, 2021, had issued a circular giving out various directions to ensure no irregularities take place in distribution and sending of postal ballots. Yet despite these directions from the CP, we have received alarming reports that the Police Welfare Association is still going about the operation in an unabashed manner.
"Similar complaints have come from Basirhat, Barasat, Mathurapur, Joynagar amongst others. This sinister operation of proxy votes is being conducted on a pan-state level. The same was brought to the notice of the Home Secretary and DG on March 6, 2021, when we met them in Nabanna," the letter read further.
"The abovenamed officers are indulging in a criminal act, at the behest of the TMC and functioning as its party cadre. We demand these officers are suspended/ transferred immediately and put on non-electoral duty so that they are no longer able to influence or interfere in the smooth and fair conduct of the elections in the state", the letter's closing statement read.
West Bengal Assembly elections will be held in eight phases starting from March 27 with the final round of voting taking place on April 29. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.
( With inputs from ANI )
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