‘Experiment in disenfranchisement’: Kapil Sibal attacks poll panel

Former Union law minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday launched a blistering attack on the Election Commission of India, accusing it of conducting an “experiment in disenfranchisement” in West Bengal even as polling got underway in the first phase of the assembly elections.

In a sharply worded post on X, the Independent Rajya Sabha MP took a swipe at chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, saying, “Election Commission: (West Bengal Election). Experiment in disenfranchisement. The CEC must be awarded with a Padma Bhushan!” He followed it up with a pointed question: “Why have an election?”

Sibal’s remarks come amid an intensely polarised electoral contest in the state, where traditional issues like corruption and employment have taken a backseat to debates around identity, citizenship, and allegations of voter roll deletions.

A day earlier, Sibal had escalated his criticism, alleging that the poll panel was working “in cahoots” with the Bharatiya Janata Party to influence the outcome. Calling the situation a “national shame,” he said it had become the “vocation” of the CEC to ensure the BJP’s victory.

At a press conference, Sibal also questioned the criteria allegedly being used to remove names from electoral rolls. “They are using the ‘logical discrepancy’ argument to disenfranchise voters,” he said. “If there is less than a 15-year gap between a voter and their parent, the name is deleted; if the gap exceeds 50 years, the name is deleted. And all this is done through AI.”

He further sharpened his attack, saying, “It is the chief election commissioner who is the logical discrepancy in this country… His discrepancy is stamped all over West Bengal.”

Sibal also criticised the scale of security deployment in the state, raising concerns over the presence of a large number of central forces during the polls.

The first phase of voting on Thursday covers 152 of the state’s 294 Assembly seats, including all constituencies in north Bengal’s eight districts, along with several seats in Murshidabad, Nadia, Birbhum and Hooghly. The remaining 142 seats will go to polls on 29 April, with counting scheduled for 4 May.

With PTI iunputs