Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal accused the Election Commission of voter suppression in West Bengal, targeting Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and questioning the credibility of the electoral process
New Delhi: Former law minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday launched a sharp attack on the Election Commission of India, alleging that it was conducting an “experiment in disenfranchisement” in West Bengal and questioning the very purpose of holding elections.
In a post on X, Sibal took a swipe at Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, saying he “must be awarded with a Padma Bhushan,” before asking, “Why have an election?”
West Bengal is currently voting in the first phase of its Assembly elections amid a polarised contest where issues such as identity, citizenship and alleged deletion of names from electoral rolls have dominated the discourse.
Sibal had on Wednesday intensified his criticism, accusing Kumar of acting in concert with the Bharatiya Janata Party to influence the outcome of the elections. He described the CEC as a “national shame” and alleged that it had become his “vocation” to ensure the BJP’s victory.
The Independent Rajya Sabha MP also questioned the large-scale deployment of security personnel and flagged what he termed a “logical discrepancy” method being used to remove voters from electoral rolls in Bengal.
“They did not use this in Maharashtra and Haryana but are using it in West Bengal,” Sibal said, alleging that voters were being struck off based on age-gap inconsistencies between them and their parents, identified through artificial intelligence.
He further said the “logical discrepancy” lay not in the data but in the functioning of the poll panel, adding that such actions had cast a shadow over the credibility of the electoral process.
The first phase of polling in West Bengal is being held across 152 of the state’s 294 constituencies, with the remaining 142 seats set to vote on April 29. Counting is scheduled for May 4.
