West Bengal political rivals Mamata Banerjee and M A Baby hold talks over Election Commission row

UPDATE - follow-up to Divide within Election Commission unites bitter Bengal rivals TMC, CPM: West Bengal political rivals Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) have started talking to each other following reports about a divide inside the Election Commission. CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby wrote a letter on September 23 to party leaders about the poll panel and the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Mamata Banerjee spoke to Baby over the phone on Friday to discuss a joint Opposition campaign to protect the credibility of the Election Commission and democracy. Banerjee also called Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to ask for an immediate meeting of the INDIA bloc. Baby had previously written to Banerjee, Rahul Gandhi, and other leaders from parties like BRS, AAP, DMK, TVK, BJD, and the Cockroach Janta Party. In his letter, Baby stated that the recent exposé revealed an authoritarian manner of functioning and warned that more than 13 crore voters face losing their voting rights. The underlying investigation showed that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised written objections at least 14 times over 10 months regarding decisions made without their knowledge. The Election Commission acknowledged these written notes on September 23 as part of its normal decision-making process but did not address the specific concerns raised. Opposition parties are now demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, a Supreme Court-supervised probe, and a pause on the SIR exercise, along with plans to submit a fresh notice in Parliament. Meanwhile, the TMC is dealing with an existential crisis after losing recent Assembly elections, facing splits, and having its party symbol and name frozen by the poll panel earlier this month.