ECI ignoring domicile certificates issued by West Bengal govt as they were granted illegally: Adhikari

The Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Monday said the Election Commission of India (ECI) had declined the domicile certificates issued by the West Bengal government as valid identity proofs for establishing voting rights in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the state for a justifiable reason.

On Sunday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had written a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, demanding that the domicile certificates issued by the state government be accepted as an identity proof at the hearing sessions on the claims and objections on the draft voters’ list, which was published on December 16.

On Monday, LoP Adhikari also wrote a letter to the CEC highlighting his arguments on why such domicile certificates issued by the state government should not be accepted as valid identity documents.

Later in the afternoon, while speaking to the media persons, Adhikari stated that the Commission was on the right path by not accepting the domicile certificates as valid identity proof.

“The Chief Minister should study the legal provisions in the matter properly. Such domicile certificates cannot be granted to anyone who has been residing at a place for less than 10 years," he said.

"The state government is operating on a formal design by a voter-strategy agency to retain the names of illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators in the voters’ list. If a particular District Magistrate is suddenly made the Commissioner of Kolkata Municipal Corporation just for the sake of issuing domicile certificates, then it is natural that such certificates would not be accepted," the LoP alleged and added that the system of the ECI is quite upgraded.

Earlier in the day, Adhikari claimed that the Chief Minister’s letter to the CEC reeked of political desperation and a frantic bid to derail a sacred Constitutional Exercise that threatens to expose the 'rot' in electoral rolls.

"A rot that her Trinamool Congress regime has nurtured and exploited for electoral gains over the past decade," he alleged.

Earlier on Sunday, he questioned how Mamata Banerjee could use her official letterhead as the Chief Minister while writing a letter to the CEC raising the political contentions of the Trinamool Congress.

“Instead, she could have used her letterhead as the chief of the Trinamool Congress while writing this letter to the CEC,” Adhikari had argued on Sunday.