West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to appear in person before the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the hearing of his plea against the Election Commission of India over the Special Intensive
Revision (SIR) in the state.
Sources told CNN-News18 that a clearance was sought from the apex court’s security for Banerjee, who is a Z+ protectee.
Banerjee on Monday walked out of a meeting with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the SIR, accusing him of being “arrogant” and working at the behest of the BJP.
However, Election Commission officials refuted her claim, saying she left without listening to the response of the poll panel top brass on the issues raised by her.
The BJP also hit back at the chief minister, alleging that she was protesting against an “imagined grievance” and enacting a “drama”.
The TMC supremo, who has been demanding a halt to the voters’ list cleanup exercise in West Bengal, is in Delhi along with SIR-affected families from her state. She reached Delhi on Sunday.
In the afternoon, she went to the poll panel’s office here, wearing a black shawl as a mark of “protest”, accompanied by party MPs Abhishek Banerjee and Kalyan Banerjee, and 12 members from “SIR affected families” from West Bengal to meet Gyanesh Kumar and fellow ECs.
The West Bengal chief minister had earlier written several letters to the CEC, raising concerns over the conduct of the exercise.
In her most recent letter to the CEC on January 31, she alleged that the methodology and approach of the exercise went beyond the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and the relevant rules, causing “immense inconvenience and agony” to citizens.
Earlier, TMC leaders, including Rajya Sabha MPs Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen, had moved the apex court, challenging certain aspects of how the SIR is being carried out in West Bengal.
