Election Commission to Mamata Banerjee: Reply personally

The Election Commission of India on Tuesday rejected the response of the West Bengal chief secretary to its show-cause notice issued to chief minister Mamata Banerjee for prima facie violating the model code, and asked her to personally respond to it by April 22.

The poll panel, in a strongly-worded letter issued to Ms Banerjee, made it clear that the notice was issued to her in her capacity as Trinamul Congress head and not as chief minister of West Bengal. “The commission, hereby makes it clear that the aforesaid notice was issued to you for MCC violation related to you as Chairperson of the All India Trinamul Congress and not to the state government of West Bengal, and therefore, the reply to that notice should have come to the commission from you and not from (chief secretary) Basudeb Banerjee,” the commission missive stated. It added that “no response from you (Ms Banerjee) has been received by the commission so far.”

The poll watchdog also emphasised that if she failed to respond by April 22, “the commission shall take a decision without further reference to you”. Interestingly, the first commission notice referred to her as CM, West Bengal, while this time Ms Banerjee has been referred to as chairperson, TMC. The state chief secretary had written to the commission on behalf of the TMC chief who was served the show-cause notice.