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Updated: Mar 30, 2019 00:09 IST

Leaders of the Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lambasted the additional Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal for asking the party to revise the lyrics of its electoral theme song for the state and alleged that the poll official is not acting neutrally.

“The additional CEO’s objections to the lyrics are completely unjust. We are forced to say that the additional chief electoral officer is not acting neutrally,” BJP state unit vice president Jay Prakash Majumdar said on Friday.

The Bengali song, sung by singer-turned-Union minister and Asansol Lok Sabha candidate Babul Supriyo, stirred a controversy soon after Supriyo uploaded it on social media on March 19.

A case was filed against him on that day itself and the CEO issued a show cause notice to the Asansol Lok Sabha candidate for releasing the song without getting it approved by the poll panel.

The BJP later submitted the lyrics of the song before the Media Certification and Monitoring Committee (MCMC) for approval, which was denied.

“We placed our arguments before the authorities. But they had no reasonable answer and simply asked us to formally place an appeal against their instruction for re-submission,” Majumdar said on Friday evening after meeting poll panel officers.

Additional CEO Sanjay Basu heads the MCMC. On Thursday, he told the media that Supriyo’s reply to the show-cause notice had been sent to the ECI in New Delhi, while the BJP was asked to re-submit the lyrics.

On Friday, Basu did not take calls made to his office.

The CEO’s office objected to several lines of the song on grounds of personal attack and making unverified charges.

“We’ll go for an appeal but will not revise the lyrics. If it does not get approval, it will be shared on social media. It has already gone viral on social media. There is no bar on sharing it on social media as long as we do not promote the content spending money,” said Sisir Bajoria, a member of BJP’s election management committee for Bengal.

Without approval, BJP leaders would not be able to play it on the venues of their electoral rallies.

Bajoria said that the poll panel authorities objected to the linking of Narada sting (where a dozen Trinamool MPs, ministers and leaders were seen accepting cash from the representative of a fictitious company) and Saradha ponzi scam. Trinamool leaders argued that there was no proof of the involvement of the party with the scams.

“There is a line that says Didir Paye Hawai Choti, Bhai-era sob kotipoti (Didi wears humble slippers, but her brothers own crores). The EC objected to the line saying its personal attack. We asked, personal attack on whom? Who do you think the Didi is? The additional chief electoral officer said that everybody knows who Didi is. He simply wouldn’t approve the lyrics,” said Bajoria.

Another line to which CEO officers objected to said, “Kalighater Talir Chala/ Oi choreder pathshala (that humble house with a roof of earthen tiles in Kalighat is a tutorial for thieves),” while yet another line alleges that flyovers collapse in Bengal because of Trinamool’s corruption.

Yet another line is “Chor Gunda Rajya Chalay/ police lukay table er tolay (thugs runs the state, while the cops hide under tables)”.

“I merely set tunes to a set of slogans that had already become popular on social media. I didn’t write the lyrics. What is my fault here?” Supriyo said on Friday.

“I urge our political rivals to also set tunes on slogans and make it even more popular than the one I sang,” said the minister, who has worked as a playback singer in Bollywood for a number of years.