No BLAs to be allowed during SIR hearing session, says ECI as Trinamool legislator halts process in Bengal district

Kolkata, Dec 29 The Election Commission of India (ECI), on Monday, had made it clear that the booth-level agents (BLAs) of any political party would be allowed to be present at the hearings on claims and objections regarding the draft voters' lists in West Bengal that started from late last week.

The order from the Commission had come amid a development earlier in the day where Trinamool Congress legislator Asit Mazumder forcefully stopped the hearing process at a centre in Hooghly district, demanding that his party BLAs should be allowed to be present at the hearing sessions.

Sources from the office of the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal said that the Commission had made it clear that electoral registration officers (EROs) would be liable in case any BLA of a political party is present at the hearing session.

The Commission had also made the district magistrates, as well as the district electoral officers (DEOs), liable in case of any future incident of forcefully stopping the hearing process, as was done by Mazumder earlier on Monday in the Hooghly district.

The Commission had instructed the DEOs to personally reach the hearing venue in the future in case any such forceful stopping of the session is reported, as it happened earlier in the day.

On Sunday, Trinamool Congress General Secretary and Lok Sabha MP, Abhishek Banerjee, at a virtual meeting with his party leaders, workers, and BLAs, issued instructions for the mandatory presence of party BLAs at the hearing sessions.

He even said that the Trinamool Congress would take the legal route if the BLAs were not allowed to be present at the hearing session.

On Monday after stopping the hearing session in Hooghly district, Mazumder claimed that he had been following the instructions given by the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and the party's General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

A CEO's office insider said that since this is the first case of forceful stopping of the hearing session, the Commission had issued a fresh reminder on no-entry for BLAs at the hearing sessions, which was notified before their beginning.

"In the future, if the same thing happens, the Commission might use its authority to impose stronger security measures for the hearing venues," a CEO's office source said.

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