Murshidabad (West Bengal) [India], April 12 : Senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Sunday launched a sharp attack on the Election Commission and the West Bengal government, alleging that their 'abundant' and 'miserable' failure in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise has made the common voter the 'worst casualty'.
Chowdhury is contesting from the Berhampore Assembly constituency for the West Bengal Assembly polls under a Congress ticket.
The Congress leader said that free and fair elections are not possible without accurate and transparent electoral rolls, citing constitutional provisions guaranteeing universal adult franchise.
"The issue is that a free and fair election is contingent upon the free and fair electoral rolls. Under Article 326, each and every Indian citizen is entitled to exercise their adult franchise without committing any wrong by those electorates. It is due to the abundant failure, miserable failure, of the Election Commission as well as the state government of West Bengal that those common voters have turned into the worst casualty of this kind of exercise, which was unprecedented in our state earlier," he said.
He further asserted that the integrity of the electoral process is being compromised due to irregularities in the voter list preparation.
"Without having free and fair electoral rolls, free and fair elections cannot be possible," he added.
Chowdhury also suggested that polling should be deferred until a transparent revision of electoral rolls is completed, urging intervention by constitutional authorities.
"My proposal was to the Chief Minister of West Bengal that she should propose or urge upon the Election Commission, or even if she likes, the Supreme Court that the election should be postponed till the free and fair electoral rolls are prepared," he said.
The remarks come amid ongoing political tensions in West Bengal over the electoral roll revision process and allegations raised by multiple parties regarding voter list discrepancies ahead of the Assembly elections.
West Bengal is set for two phases of assembly polls on April 23 and 29, with the results set for May 4.
The upcoming elections follow the 2021 battle, where the TMC secured a landslide 213 seats. However, the BJP's growth from a minor player to 77 seats in the last cycle has set the stage for the current high-stakes confrontation.
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