ECI’s ‘straight-talk’ tweet to TMC sparks row, X users cry ‘biased’

Amid the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) row in West Bengal ahead of elections, a tweet by the Election Commission of India has sparked a row on social media, with users calling out ECI’s language targeting a particular political party.

In the tweet, the ECI wrote, “ECI’s straight-talk to Trinamool Congress, this time, the elections in West Bengal would surely be: fear-free, violence-free, intimidation-free, inducement-free, and without any chappa, booth jamming and source jamming.”

The tweet by the election administrator of India, posted in both Hindi and English, did not sit well with the platform users, who expressed their displeasure in the reactions.

“What kind of language is this ECI using,  as if it were a competitor of TMC,” wrote one user.

“ECI, you are a constitutional body, not a political party,” they added.

Some pointed out the alleged bias in the language of the tweet, saying, “What does it mean for the Election Commission to speak so bluntly to one party? Is it giving a response to one on behalf of another?”

“Such a biased post,” said one, while another read, “I rechecked it whether it’s the official account of Election Commission or some random BJP IT cell account in the name of ECI!?!”

Some were even more blunt, as one user said, “Nice Collab with bjp.”

TMC has consistently locked horns with ECI over the timing of the SIR exercise in West Bengal and the procedure of deletion of the voting.

With the judicial adjudication process for voters in West Bengal concluding after midnight on Monday, the ECI has estimated that the total number of deleted voters in West Bengal has risen to approximately 91 lakh. 

However, the number might increase nominally in due course after the ECI arrives at the final figure, with the process of putting e-signatures by the judicial officers completed for a small percentage of the total number of cases that were referred for judicial adjudication.

Of the total number of 60,06,675 cases referred for judicial adjudication, the process has been finalised for 59,84,512 cases, with e-signatures of the judicial officers put on them.

Again, out of the figure of 59,84,512, the number of voters who have been deemed ‘excludable’ and hence ‘deleted’ by the judicial officers stands at 27,16,393, which means that the total number of deleted voters in West Bengal currently stands at 90,83,345.

Before the notification of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was issued for West Bengal in November last year, the total number of voters in the state stood at 7,66,37,529. In the draft voters’ list published in December last year, a total of 58,20,899 names were deleted. In the final voters’ list published on February 28, the deletion figure rose to 63,66,952.

The two-phase Assembly polls in West Bengal will be on April 23 and 29. In the first phase, voting will be held for 152 Assembly constituencies, and in the second phase, the remaining 142 seats will have polling. The results will be declared on May 4.

(with inputs from syndicated feed)