Protester in 2024 Bangladesh student uprising is voter in Bengal, ECI orders probe

Kolkata, June 10 (IANS) The Election Commission of India (ECI) has ordered the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to probe the case of a man, who was active in the student ‘movement’ in Bangladesh last year, and features as a registered voter in the Kakdwip Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district.

The controversy surfaced after some whistleblowers highlighted the picture of Newton Das, a registered voter with Kakdwip Assembly constituency, featuring in the students’ movement in Bangladesh last year on social media.

The whistleblowers also claimed that Das had dual citizenship of India and Bangladesh.

Das, however, has denied the allegations of holding Bangladeshi citizenship, though he did not deny having gone to the country and participating in the students’ movement there.

According to him, he had been a voter of the Kakdwip Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas district since 2014 and had also voted in the Lok Sabha elections that year.

He claimed that he went to Bangladesh in 2024 in order to address some issues relating to his ancestral property there, and during the period, he got involved with the students’ movement there.

He also claimed that in 2017 he lost the EPIC card, which was issued to him in 2014, and in 2018 he was issued a fresh card. He also admitted that the Trinamool Congress MLA from Kakdwip, Manturam Pakhira, helped him in getting the new EPIC card.

However, things became complicated for Newton Das after one of his cousins, also a registered voter of the Kakdwip Assembly constituency, claimed that Newton had voter cards both in India and Bangladesh.

The West Bengal unit of the BJP created an uproar on the issue, and claimed that Newton’s example validates their long-time allegations of Trinamool Congress and the state administration enlisting Bangladeshi nationals in the state’s voters list.

In the face of massive controversy surfacing on the issue, the ECI has finally directed the office of the CEO, West Bengal, to conduct a detailed probe into the matter.

–IANS

SRC/DPB