Kolkata, Aug 12 (PTI) Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet should resign and the current Lok Sabha be dissolved if the Election Commission says there are discrepancies in the electoral rolls.
Banerjee, who is the national general secretary of TMC and considered the number two in the Mamata Banerjee-led party, said that the "EC cannot selectively say" that the voter list is fine in some states such as Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, but not in West Bengal, Bihar or Tamil Nadu.
"If SIR (special intensive revision) of electoral rolls is conducted, it should be held across the country and the first step should be the resignation of the prime minister and his cabinet and the Lok Sabha has to be dissolved," he said.
The TMC leader claimed that if the present government has been elected on the basis of the same voter list, then the legitimacy of the central government is null and void.
"Even if I accept ECI's claim that there are irregularities in the voter list, this very list was used in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, based on which the current Prime Minister and government were elected. If there are irregularities now, the entire Union Ministry must resign," Banerjee told reporters at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport here before leaving for Delhi.
Banerjee added that "criminal proceedings" should also be initiated against the then Chief Election Commissioner, Rajiv Kumar, because it was under his vigilance and supervision that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were conducted.
"Over 240 BJP MPs were elected, on the same so-called 'irregular' rolls. And by that logic, the President, Vice President, and all Union ministers should also resign. The state elections in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Haryana elections were also held using the same list," Banerjee alleged.
Stating that even he was elected by electorates of the same list, Banerjee challenged the BJP and NDA to begin submitting resignations and face voters afresh.
"Let the BJP start, we will all resign. The Trinamool Congress, Congress, DMK, Samajwadi Party, and other opposition parties will resign too. Let the Lok Sabha be dissolved. Conduct the SIR nationwide. Then hold fresh elections," he said.
Banerjee alleged that the BJP has got the SIR done in Bihar since it knows they would lose the assembly elections in the state due later this year if people apply their voting rights.
"Rules cannot be different for different states, it should be the same for all states," he said, demanding that SIR be held in all states and not in some "selected states".
Responding to a question on Monday's ruckus in Delhi during the opposition MPs' protest march to Nirvachan Sadan, the TMC leader said they were stopped from reaching their destination because the ECI wanted to "avoid facing uncomfortable questions".
"We had some basic questions: Why in 2025 can we not have access to a digitised voter list? Why is the SIR being conducted forcefully, especially in Opposition-ruled states? What happened yesterday proves that if they truly had an answer, they would have met the MPs. Instead, they detained them, dragged women by their hair, lathicharged protesters, and made them sit in police stations," he alleged.
Banerjee warned the poll panel of people's backlash if a single person from Bengal is excluded from the voter list in the name of SIR.
"If the BJP thinks it can strip citizens of their rights and run the country as it pleases, we will respond in the same language. If even one name is removed, one lakh people will gherao the ECI. No BJP leader will be able to save them," he declared.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)