Mamata seeks collegium like SC to appoint election commissioners

Kolkata, June 07: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday demanded a collegium be set up on the lines of Supreme Court to appoint election commissioners.

Hitting out at the Election Commission for what she alleged was its partisan approach during the Lok Sabha polls, she said three nominated members of the EC should not be given the mandate to hold polls.

She appealed to all the opposition parties to unitedly demand constitution of a fact-finding committee to unravel alleged EVM tampering and electoral malpractices.

"There are numerous evidences of EVM programming and election malpractices. We think there should be a fact-finding committee to unravel the tampering of EVMs, Hawala transactions. Other opposition parties should also demand it. I will speak to the Congress regarding this demand," Banerjee said after a party meeting here.

"In the Supreme Court there is a collegium to decide (on appointment of Judges). So in Election Commission too there should be a collegium to decide on appointment of elections commissioners. Three nominated members can't have the mandate to conduct the polls," she said.

While speaking on her decision of not attending the NITI Ayog meet on June 15, Banerjee said it is "simply useless" to attend the meet as the agenda of the meeting is being set by the Centre without consulting the states.

"They only set the agenda without consulting us. And the agenda they set are completely unimportant in terms of state-related matters. We are also not allowed to speak," she said.

PTI