Mamata accuses CEC of ‘disrespecting’ her

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday held an acrimonious meeting with the Election Commission in Delhi over the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, with the Trinamool Congress chief accusing chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar of “insulting, disrespecting and humiliating” her.

- Harsh Yadav and Joydeep Thakur

Wearing black shawls as a mark of protest, Banerjee, accompanied by party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, MP Kalyan Banerjee, and eight people allegedly affected by SIR, walked out of the meeting about an hour after it began.

“We boycotted the CEC and walked out. We were insulted, disrespected and humiliated. I have never seen this kind of CEC. He is very arrogant. He behaved so badly with us. We meet him to get justice. We never got justice. You are doing injustice. He is a great liar. All are garbage of lies,” Banerjee told reporters after coming out of Nirvachan Sadan.

Banerjee targeted Kumar, comparing his conduct to that of former West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar. “Today you are acting on BJP’s orders. Dhankhar also acted in the same way. He was the Governor of our state who always used to oppose us. We used to respect him. But there is a ‘Laxman Rekha’. Your fate would be the same as Dhankhar. You are not including voters in the electoral roll. You are deleting their names,” she said.

“You can save your chair today. You won't be able to save it tomorrow (in future). I have seen many CECs ~ SY Quraishi and TN Seshan. They were very strong. They never became a parrot for any political party,” she added.