Never seen such an 'arrogant' and 'liar' CEC: Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata, Feb 2 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday that in her long political career, she had never come across such an "arrogant" and "liar" Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) like the current one.

"I was a Member of Parliament for seven terms. I was a Union Minister for four terms. But I have never seen such a Chief Election Commissioner. He is so arrogant. He is a great liar. I clearly told him that no one will be in a chair forever. Everyone has to go sometime or the other," the Chief Minister told media persons after a meeting of more than an hour with the CEC, Gyanesh Kumar, at the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s headquarters in New Delhi earlier in the afternoon.

According to Chief Minister Banerjee, West Bengal is being targeted over the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR).

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister especially targeted ECI's Director General (Information Technology), Seema Khanna, and accused her of playing the lead role in deleting the names of genuine voters in West Bengal.

"Who is Seema Khanna? She is no one in ECI. She is attached to the Information Technology Cell of the BJP. Already 58 lakh names have been deleted from the draft voters' list. But the ECI did not question her on this," the Chief Minister said.

She also added that because of the arrogance of the CEC and the insult faced by the Trinamool Congress' delegation, she decided to boycott and walk out of the meeting with the ECI midway.

"He (CEC) misbehaved with us from the beginning. I told the CEC that ultimately his condition will be like the former Indian Vice-President and the former West Bengal Governor, Jagdeep Dhankhar. He did the same thing as the former West Bengal Governor by blindly following what the BJP asked him to do," the Chief Minister said.

According to the Chief Minister, the fact that the current CEC is specially targeting West Bengal under instructions of the BJP is evident from the fact that special electoral roll observers and micro-observers have been appointed exclusively for West Bengal to supervise the voter revision exercise.

"I have had so many CECs during my long political career. But I have never seen such a CEC, who is acting like a parrot and agent of the ruling party (BJP)," the Chief Minister said.

According to Mamata Banerjee, the contention is why the SIR is being done in such a hurried manner.

"Why is the SIR not being conducted in Assam. Can the CEC ask the Prime Minister to furnish the birth certificates of his parents? At the meeting today, the ECI's cameraman was there. But why were the other cameramen not allowed?" the Chief Minister asked.

--IANS

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