West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Credit: PTI Photo
Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has once again written to the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, urging him to rectify the glitches in the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls in West Bengal and warning that if the process continued with serious irregularities, it might lead to mass disenfranchisement of eligible voters.
Even as the death of another sick and elderly man at Joynagar in the South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal is being blamed on the ongoing revision of the electoral rolls, Mamata alleged that the citizens, including the elderly, infirm and seriously ill, were being subjected to needless anxiety and harassment.
The chief minister, in her third letter to the CEC since the start of the SIR of the electoral rolls in West Bengal, conveyed her “grave concern” regarding the serious irregularities, procedural violations, and administrative lapses being witnessed during the process.
“I strongly urge you to immediately address and rectify the glitches, address the flaws and make the necessary corrections, failing which this unplanned, arbitrary and ad hoc exercise must be halted,” she wrote, adding: “If allowed to continue in its present form, it will result in irreparable damage, large-scale disenfranchisement of eligible voters, and a direct assault on the foundational principles of democratic governance.”
Mamata wrote to Gyanesh Kumar even as her party, Trinamool Congress, continued to criticise the Election Commission for the SIR in West Bengal, accusing it of working to ensure an advantage for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the forthcoming assembly elections in the state.
Her heir apparent and the TMC general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, recently presented three voters during a rally, alleging that all of them had been declared dead by the EC and struck off from the draft electoral rolls published at the end of the first phase of the SIR.
He alleged that the names of many such electors, who continued to be alive, had been removed from the draft electoral rolls on the grounds that they had died.
“Further, in the name of addressing so-called logical discrepancies—such as spelling errors, age-related variations, etc.—the ECI has directed verification of documents of all such electors,” Mamata alleged in her letter to Gyanesh Kumar. “In cases where these certificates have been issued by authorities in other districts or states, verification is required to be carried out by the concerned issuing authorities.
" This approach appears to be intended to delay the exercise, as such inter-district or inter-state verifications will, in many cases, not be possible to complete within the stipulated time. This is likely to result in the deletion and disenfranchisement of genuine electors,” the CM and the TMC supremo pointed out.
She wrote the letter to the CEC even as the family of Najitul Mollah alleged that the ailing 68-year-old had appeared for the hearing for the revision of the electoral rolls on December 31 after being released from a hospital, but with oxygen tubes fitted to his nostrils. He had later died, the family reported, alleging that the anxiety over being struck off from the electoral rolls had killed him.
There were reports about ailing and elderly people being brought for hearings for the SIR in wheelchairs and even on stretchers from across the state.
“Additionally, electors are being summoned for hearings, without being informed of the specific reasons for such hearings, thereby subjecting them to needless anxiety and harassment. Even elderly, infirm, and seriously ill citizens are not being spared,” alleged Mamata, adding: “Many electors are being compelled to travel distances of 20–25 kilometres to attend hearings, which have inexplicably been centralised rather than decentralised. This has caused severe hardship to ordinary citizens. A decentralised hearing mechanism would have ensured accessibility, convenience, and orderliness; however, the Commission appears wholly insensitive to ground realities and persists with these deeply flawed practices.”
Mamata also referred to the “grave allegations regarding the backend deletion of electors through the misuse of IT systems, without following due process and without the knowledge or approval of the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who are the competent statutory authorities under the Representation of the People Act”. “This raises serious questions as to who has authorised such actions and under what legal authority. The ECI must be held fully accountable for the propriety of all acts and omissions carried out under its supervision or direction.”
She had recently alleged that the BJP’s IT cell was operating from within the EC and using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to delete names of genuine voters from the roll.
“It has further been brought to our notice that the Family Register, which was extensively accepted as a valid proof of identity during the SIR exercise in Bihar, is now reportedly being denied as a valid document through an informal communication issued by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer via WhatsApp message, without any formal notification or statutory order to that effect,” the TMC supremo alleged. “Such selective and unexplained exclusion of a previously accepted document raises serious concerns of discrimination and arbitrariness. This is neither the proper nor lawful manner of conducting an exercise of such critical constitutional importance.”