'Opposed but participating': TMC rolls out booth-level blitz, govt schemes to counter SIR ‘trap’

Drawing lessons from Bihar, Mamata’s party is merging grassroots mobilisation with administrative outreach, ensuring voters in even remote Bengal villages have documents in hand ahead of the Special Intensive Revision.

Kolkata: TMC may oppose the proposed Special Intensive Revision (SIR) politically, but on the ground, it has deployed a strategy combining administrative outreach with grassroots mobilisation to fight what it calls a "design by the BJP and the Election Commission" to disenfranchise voters.

Drawing lessons from Bihar, where opposition parties accused the EC of deleting names without proper verification during the SIR exercise, the ruling party in Bengal has activated its cadre down to the booth level.

The TMC is banking on its organisational muscle spread across 80,000 booths, likely to increase to 94,000, and is conducting workshops, training programmes, and setting up task forces to monitor the revision process.

"In India, the TMC is the only political party with an intensive booth-level organisation prepared to counter any review of voter lists. This has been embedded in the party’s culture for the past 25 years. We are opposed to SIR," TMC state vice-president Jaiprakash Majumdar told PTI.

Majumdar said special instructions have been relayed to the booth level for checking electoral rolls.

"The entire organisation, including the party's frontal units, has been engaged for a seamless and error-free workflow. In recent meetings, our national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has put special emphasis on accountability in this work," he said.

The SIR has already sparked political controversy in Bihar, where the electorate dropped from 7.9 crore to 7.24 crore after over 65 lakh names were excluded in the first phase of the revision.

The EC had claimed that 22,34,501 people, registered in the electoral rolls, were found to be dead during the exercise.

Another 36.28 lakh have 'permanently shifted' out of the state or were 'not found' at their stated addresses, and 7.01 lakh have been found enrolled at 'more than one place'.

Bengal has about 7.6 crore voters, and the ruling TMC fears a repeat of Bihar.

To pre-empt such a scenario, the Mamata Banerjee government has aligned its flagship public outreach schemes such as 'Duare Sarkar' and 'Amar Para, Amar Samadhan' with the political task at hand.

These camps, attended by over one crore people in just 26 days, are now being used to provide missing documents, residence certificates, caste certificates, family registers, land papers, and forest rights certificates, after proper verification, to those who lack them, apart from addressing civic and governance issues.

"Through 'Duare Sarkar' camps, many rural people who can't afford to travel to district headquarters are being provided certificates. Whenever the SIR starts, we will ensure that no genuine voter goes without documentation," a senior TMC leader said.

Party leaders claim that demand at these help desks has surged.

"Earlier, we used to get 70-80 people a day for documentation. Now, nearly 500 people are coming who either don't have land or caste certificates or have lost them. Our volunteers are helping them," said a TMC leader from North 24 Parganas.

In the past week, Abhishek Banerjee has held meetings across seven organisational districts in North Bengal, comprising 44 assembly segments, where TMC slipped from 24 assembly seats in 2021 to the equivalent of 20 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, reviewing booth-level performance with granular data.

He instructed district leaders to identify narrowly lost booths, eliminate inactive or BJP-linked functionaries, and maintain strong cadre presence at the booth level ahead of the SIR.

"Abhishek Banerjee has directed every district to use government schemes as a major campaign tool. In districts where the party fared poorly in the Lok Sabha polls, he asked leaders: if the government is delivering, why are we losing votes?" a senior TMC leader said.

The party has already revamped district committees and is set to replace nearly 30-40 per cent of block and town presidents in September, a move aimed at plugging sabotage and rejuvenating grassroots structures.

The BJP, however, has accused the TMC of doublespeak.

In a social media post, senior BJP leader Jagannath Chattopadhyaya shared a list detailing the number of districts from which each party has submitted names for Booth Level Agents (BLA-1). The list shows that the TMC has submitted names from five districts so far.

"In the case of appointing BLA-1s, TMC has submitted names for five districts. If they are opposed to the SIR, why are they participating in the process?" he questioned.

A senior TMC leader clarified the party’s stand.

"There is no question of supporting the SIR. We will oppose it, but organisational readiness is necessary to prevent the BJP from claiming TMC failed to provide personnel. To thwart BJP’s designs, people must be present at the booth level," he added.

TMC sources added that most districts have submitted names for BLA-1s, which the party will approve before forwarding to the Election Commission.

Political analyst Suman Bhattacharya said the TMC is combining government schemes and party machinery to blunt the SIR's impact.

"The TMC leadership has taken lessons from Bihar. While Bihar's issue was deletion without proper documentation, in Bengal the ruling party is ensuring through outreach programmes and its network that even the remotest voter has papers in hand," he said.