Mamata lashes out at Election Commission over voter list revision

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday questioned the new voter list revision guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) ahead of the assembly elections in Bihar this year. She also feared that these new guidelines could be another step towards the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). She further claimed that although these new guidelines have been issued ahead of the Bihar assembly elections, the main target of these new guidelines is West Bengal, where crucial assembly elections are also due next year. The Chief Minister particularly questioned the new guidelines, which include a ban on registering names in the voter list without proof of citizenship, mandatory provision of place of birth for those whose names were not in the voter list in 2003, mandatory submission of documents of place and date of birth for those born before July 1, 1987 and mandatory submission of relevant documents of parents for those born after July 1, 1987. Alleging that the Election Commission was “acting like a puppet of the BJP”, Banerjee asked if the move was a backdoor attempt to implement the NRC. The chief minister said that in fact, the central government is targeting West Bengal through the Election Commission by using Bihar as a shield. Bihar already has a BJP coalition government. They will not do anything there. They are actually trying to target West Bengal and migrant workers. The commission is working on the instructions of the BJP. She was in Digha in East Midnapore district to attend the Rath Yatra festival of the newly built Lord Jagannath. However, the temple is officially called the Shree Jagannath Dham Cultural Centre. She said the Election Commission should not have issued these new voter list revision guidelines without consulting various registered political parties in the country.