EC’s ‘Straight Talk’ to Trinamool Congress invites angry reactions

It is unprecedented and has never happened before. Never before has the Election Commission singled out a ruling party before a crucial state election and publicly blamed it for electoral malpractices.

Throwing a gauntlet to the Trinamool Congress weeks before polling in the state (on 23 and 29 April) to elect a new assembly, the ECI posted this message on X : ECI's Straight-talk to Trinamool Congress: This time, the elections in West Bengal would surely be fear-free, violence-free, intimidation-free, inducement-free and without any chappa (stuffing of votes), booth jamming and source jamming.”

It is not clear whether the warning was posted before or after the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar received a delegation of Trinamool Congress leaders comprising Derek O’Brien, Sagarika Ghose, Saket Gokhale and Menaka Guruswamy. The ECI’s post is time stamped 10.20 am on 8 April 2026. Trinamool Congress posted a video at 10.34 am showing the delegation arriving at Nirvachan Sadan to call on the CEC.

Derek O’Brien claimed later that the meeting lasted seven minutes before the CEC asked the delegation to ‘get lost’. Another member of the delegation Sagarika Ghose claimed in a separate post that the CEC had dispensed with only two sentences during the meeting. “Two lines were said to us by the Chief Election Commissioner Vanish Kumar. The first line: where is your authorised signatory. And the second most SHAMEFUL two words: “GET LOST,” she posted on X.

The ECI’s post, the leaders claimed, suggested that the message was conveyed to the delegation, which was a ‘lie’, claimed O’Brien, Ghose and Gokhale separately. Let the ECI release the video footage or audio of the meeting to disprove their claim, they added.

Relations between Trinamool Congress and the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar have grown progressively bitter in the run up to the election. The party points out that while 506 state government officers were replaced by the ECI in five poll-bound states this month, in West Bengal alone the number has been 483. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has publicly accused the ECI for surreptitiously holding the election in the state under an undeclared President’s Rule. The CEC is also held personally responsible by the party for requisitioning 2,400 companies of CAPF to maintain law and order as against just 700 companies during the last election in 2021. The bitterness descended to a personal level when Trinamool leaders began calling the CEC ‘Vanish Kumar’ in public.

The Trinamool delegation on Wednesday, it is learnt, had drawn the CEC’s attention to the nine letters addressed to him by Mamata Banerjee, none of which was either acknowledged or replied to, they complained.

They also drew the attention of the CEC to the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal visiting assembly constituencies in the company of people associated with the BJP or those who are known in the constituency to be close to BJP leaders.

The party had also demanded the replacement of the Returning Officer in Bhabanipur constituency in Kolkata where Mamata Banerjee and leader of the opposition Suvendu Adhikari are locked in an acrimonious electoral battle. O’Brien claimed the CEC did not address any of the issues raised during the brief meeting.      

Trinamool Congress retorted to the ECI post around 1 pm on Wednesday with its own version of the ‘straight talk’ addressed to the Election Commission. “Our straight talk to the ECI: this time, the elections must be free from Delhi’s control, free from political bias, free from selective targeting and free from double standards”, it read.

The controversy has raised questions about propriety. The CEC may have good reasons to be upset at the manner in which he is vilified by Trinamool leaders; and the Election Commission may well be convinced that the ruling party in West Bengal resorts to intimidation and inducement during elections. However, for the ECI to believe that all other parties are lily white and model contestants borders on naivete. Moreover, when polling is scheduled in Kerala, Assam and Puducherry on Thursday, 9 April, posting a message like this is seen as tactless and unnecessary.

The Election Commission is mandated to hold a free and fair election. Insinuating that earlier elections were not is an insult to the institution itself. The Election Commission has done itself a great disservice and its image as a neutral referee has suffered another blow. Trinamool Congress leaders have been saying that the contest is between Trinamool and the ‘ECI alliance’ and this controversy will give them more ballast.