BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari accused Kolkata’s civic body of misusing birth certificates to manipulate electoral rolls, a claim denied by TMC officials.
KOLKATA: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday accused the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) of issuing birth certificates on a large scale to help “suspicious individuals” who were at risk of being removed from the electoral list during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in West Bengal, a claim that was rejected by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC)
“This is nothing but a blatant attempt to manipulate Electoral Rolls and undermine the Democratic process. Birth Certificates are legal documents meant for citizens of our country; generally newborns or in some extremely rare cases; people seeking genuine late registrations. Birth Certificates are not tools for political engineering, with the malafide intention of changing the demography for vested political interests,” Adhikari, who is the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, said in a post on X.
On X, he also posted a letter addressed to Kolkata municipal commissioner Sumit Gupta, in which he sought details about the birth certificate issued by the corporation during the last month, and other statistics.
Trinamool Congress state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar said Adhikari’s allegation was “preposterous”
