Kolkata: West Bengal BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya on Friday said Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar deserved a Padma Bhushan "at the very least", and credited him with ensuring a violence-free assembly election in the state and "cleansing" the voter list by removing illegal Bangladeshis from it.
Bhattacharya's defence of the CEC came amid a major controversy over the poll panel's functioning after reports surfaced that two election commissioners had objected to decisions allegedly taken in their names during the SIR exercise.
