West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday alleged that during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists in the state, the Election Commission unilaterally removed 54 lakh names and misused the powers given to the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) for this work. Stepping up her attack against the Commission over the SIR, Mamata claimed that most of the voters whose names were deleted were genuine voters who were not given a chance to present their views as they were not even informed about the reasons for deletion.
The Chief Minister alleged in a press conference held at the State Secretariat, Nabanna, ‘The Election Commission, sitting in Delhi, removed the names using AI software developed by the BJP. These software are responsible for the errors that occur while matching names in the SIR data. He removed the names of those women who had changed their surname after marriage. They also declared many living voters of the state dead.
What did Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee allege?
Mamata Banerjee claimed that this logical gap was not part of the original SIR verification process and was included later to remove a large number of names.
He said that ERO was given the responsibility of removing the names of 54 lakh voters, while in many cases these officials were not even aware that the marked names were being removed. Mamata said she has already written five letters to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar complaining about irregularities in the voter list, unilateral decisions and digitalisation-related errors due to which voters in the state are facing difficulties. The Trinamool Congress chief alleged that the BJP-Election Commission alliance was planning to remove one crore more names from the final voter list.
He said, ‘The Commission has identified 13.6 crore voters for verification hearing on the basis of logical difference. Eminent personalities like Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, poet Joy Goswami, cricketer Mohammed Shami and Lakshmi Ratan Shukla are included in this list. This list has been made so that the names of one crore voters can be deleted. Mamata accused the Election Commission of being in collusion with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to conduct the SIR exercise in a way that would benefit the party at the grassroots level.
He said, ‘The Election Commission has not allowed Booth Level Agent-2 (BLA-2) to attend the SIR hearing because the BJP could not gather its workers for this work.’
Questions raised on deployment of micro observers
Questioning the deployment of micro observers in the state to monitor the hearing phase of the SIR, Mamata accused the commission of violating its own rules to conduct the process. “Deployment of micro observers is not permitted as per SIR rules; Why are they being deployed only in Bengal and not in any other state?
Mamata said people are not obliged to listen to the micro observers, who are “acting like BJP’s stooges” as they have been deployed in violation of the original SIR rules. He claimed, ‘BJP, with the help of the Election Commission, adopted similar vicious tactics to win elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Bihar. But the opposition parties there could not catch these moves in time.
Showing a purported photograph of a stack of enumeration forms kept in the trunk of a car, Mamata alleged that workers associated with the BJP and its agencies were caught red-handed carrying huge quantities of SIR forms to different areas of the state to remove the names of voters in Bankura and Malda districts. Earlier in the day, police recovered a large number of filled Form-7s from the trunk of a car going from Taldangra in Bankura towards Khatra and detained two people in this connection.
Form-7 is an application submitted to the Election Commission, in which an objection is lodged to the inclusion of a person’s name in the voter list or a request is made to remove the name of oneself or any other person from the voter list on the basis of death or transfer. Police said that this car is said to belong to a BJP worker, which was stopped by local Trinamool workers when they suspected its movement.
According to the police, three people in the car managed to escape, but two others were taken into custody. He said that an FIR has been registered in Khatra police station in connection with the matter.
Is this not theft of information, rights and democracy?
She said, ‘I urge the BLAs of my party to be alert about this political conspiracy in their respective areas. I also urge the police to be alert about such suspicious activities, because miscreants can also carry weapons in their vehicles, which can threaten the safety of the people of this state.
Mamta alleged that the Election Commission is running on WhatsApp, which keeps changing its instructions several times a day. He claimed that the Commission also informed the officials about its decision to extend the hearing till January 14 through WhatsApp. Mamta also accused the Election Commission of adopting double standards. He said, ‘Domicile certificate was accepted as a valid citizenship document in Bihar, but not in Bengal. Who is instructing them to do this from behind the scenes?
