New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in New Delhi wearing a black shawl as a sign of protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the poll-bound state.
After the meeting, Banerjee said, “If you had to do SIR, you should have left the election-bound states and done it with proper planning, but you didn't. You have a BJP government in Assam. You didn't do SIR in Assam, but you did it in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu,” she said.
Launching a scathing attack on PM Modi, she said, “What did you do to us? You removed 58 lakh people. There's a lot of mismatch and mismapping here. If we had to do SIR in 2022, and ask us to bring the birth certificates of our fathers, it would not have been possible. Earlier, children were born in homes and not in hospitals... Ask your Prime Minister if he has the institutional delivery certificates of his father and mother.”
Hitting out at the EC chief Gyanesh Kumar she said, "I am very sad. I have been involved in politics in Delhi for a very long time. I was a minister 4 times and an MP 7 times. I have never seen such an Election Commission who is so arrogant, who is such a liar. I told him that I respect your chair because no chair is permanent for anyone. One day you have to go... Why Bengal is being targeted. Elections are a festival in a democracy, but you deleted the names of 58 lakh people and did not allow them to defend themselves," she added.
Leader of Opposition in the state assembly and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari called the chief minister's Delhi visit "dramabazi."
