TMC Takes SIR Row To Supreme Court After BJP Victory In Bengal Polls: 'Winning Margin In 31 Seats Less Than Deletions'

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kalyan Banerjee alleged before the Supreme Court on Monday, May 11, that in 31 West Bengal assembly constituencies, victory margins were less than the number of votes deleted.

According to Live Law, Kalyan Banerjee, who is also a senior advocate, said the winning margin in 31 assembly constituencies was less than the deletions due to SIR adjudication.

He reportedly referred to the election result from the Jangipara constituency, where the BJP's Prasenjit Bag won the election, beating TMC leader Snehasis Chakraborty by 862 votes. He said his client lost by 862 votes, whereas the deletions in the constituency were far higher - over 5000.

"My candidate lost by 862 votes, but 5,550 names were deleted. This Court had indicated that if the vote difference is less than the deletion of names, then this court will look into it," Banerjee was quoted by Bar and Bench as saying.

Banerjee demanded some sort of court intervention in cases where the election results were likely impacted by large-scale voter deletions, which are still in the process of being challenged before appellate tribunals.

What did the Supreme Court say?

According to Bar an Bench, the Supreme Court indicated that a separate application would have to be filed to raise issues about the election results.

"Whatever you want to say about results, about deletions etc. this requires an independent IA," Justice Bagchi was quoted as saying.

What did the judge say earlier? 'If 10%...'

Justice Bagchi had said during a hearing on April 13 that unless and until there is an "enormous amount of voters excluded", the West Bengal election results cannot be interfered with.

"If 10 percent does not vote and the winning margin is more than 10 percent then...if it's less than 5 percent then we have to apply our mind. Earlier, a candidate was given primacy before the appellate tribunal because a candidate cannot be denied the right to contest. Please don't think the question is not in our mind, what about those who are excluded?" the judge had added, according to Bar and Bench.

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