A meeting between a delegation of the TMC and the Election Commission turned tense on Wednesday after both sides recounted two versions of what occurred.
Sources in the poll body say that Derek O’Brien, a TMC MP, allegedly raised his voice and told the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar not to speak during the meeting.
The poll body also alleged that the Drek O’Brien had to be asked to maintain decorum and that the CEC had to intervene to restore order.
“CEC Gyanesh Kumar requested Derek O’Brien to maintain decorum of the commission room telling him that ‘shouting and indecent behaviour is not appropriate’,” the sources said.
The TMC leaders, however, have rejected all of the allegations and called them false. They also asked to release a record of the meeting to the public.
O'Brien has claimed that the CEC asked the delegation to ‘get lost’ just seven minutes after the meeting started.
“The meeting started at 10:02am and ended at 10:07am," he said.
The party had met the poll body to raise concerns on official transfers and free and fair elections. They also wanted to raise the issue of the 27 lakh names which were left out of the voters' list.
"Today, we went to the Chief Election Commissioner. He told us 'get lost' within 7 minutes of the meeting. The meeting started at 10:02 AM and ended at 10:07 AM... When we told him that you are transferring officials, and how you would want to conduct a free and fair election? And then he said, leave from here," O’Brein said.
Meanwhile, the EC took to X to say that it issued an ultimatum to the TMC to hold a "Fear-free, Violence-free, Intimidation-free, Inducement-free, Raid-free, Booth and Source Jamming-free" polls in the state.
Responding to the post, a former TMC Mp who was part of the delegation said, "This is a LIE. I was personally present at the meeting. NOTHING like this was said. All that CEC Gyanesh Kumar said to us was “GET LOST”. We challenge the ECI to release a transcript of the meeting. Else we will do it."
The TMC alleged that the meeting had to be ended after Gyanesh Kumar asked everyone to leave.
"He doesn't know who he is playing with. This is the Trinamool of Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee." O'Brien said. "Nothing happened in the meeting. Not a single word was said. He talked to himself."
The Trinamool delegation included two other Trinamool Rajya Sabha MPs, Menka Goswami and Sagarika Ghosh. Former Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale was also present. They submitted a memorandum to the commission.
