Kolkata, Dec 27 The Election Commission of India (ECI), on Saturday, dismissed the allegations levelled by the four-time Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member and the current Chief Whip of the party in Lok Sabha, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, earlier in the day accusing the Commission of deliberately summoning four of her family members for hearing on the claims and objections over the draft voters' list in West Bengal with the intention of harassing them.
On Saturday morning, Ghosh Dastidar told the media persons that her two sons, her aged mother, and younger sister have been summoned by the ECI for a hearing, and also alleged that this was deliberately to harass them because of their family links with her.
However, on Saturday afternoon, the office of the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) issued a statement trashing the allegations as baseless.
In the statement, which the CEO's office shared on its official X account, it has been claimed that the allegations by the veteran Trinamool Congress MP was completely misleading.
In the statement, the CEO's office had also clarified that these persons were summoned for a hearing as "unmapped" voters, since none of them had linkage with the voters' list in West Bengal for 2002, either through "self-mapping" or "progeny-mapping".
The last time the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was conducted in West Bengal was in 2002.
"The Claim is misleading. The Enumeration forms clearly show that there is no linkage. So they (Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP's family members) are called for a hearing as per relevant provisions of the notification of ECI," the statement from the CEO's office said.
Earlier in the day, Ghosh Dastidar claimed that both her sons, her mother and her sister received the notices for the hearing as their names were not included in the draft voters' list published on December 16.
The Trinamool Congress legislator also claimed that besides her two sons, her mother and younger sister were issued notices for being present at the hearing on claims and objections related to the draft voters' list.
Their names were also not included in the draft voters' list.
"Both my sons are government servants. Their deceased father, Sudarshan Ghosh Dastidar, was a member of the West Bengal Cabinet. I have been a Lok Sabha member for four terms since 2009. Still, they have been summoned for a hearing. So what is going on in the name of SIR is easily imaginable. It is nothing but an exercise to harass people," she said.
On Saturday, the CEO's office also told that a central team of the ECI lead by the Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharati will be coming to Kolkata next week to review the ongoing hearing sessions on the claims and objections over the draft voters' list.
Deputy Election Commissioner Bharati will also hold a meeting with the West Bengal CEO Manoj Kumar Agarwal on December 30.
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