TMC sharpens attack on EC over SIR, alleges even Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen served notice

Kolkata: The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal on Tuesday sharpened its attack on the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls in the state, alleging that the poll panel had even cast aspersions on the voting right of renowned economist Amartya Sen.

The 92-year-old economist, who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998, was born in Shantiniketan, West Bengal. He has been a voter in the state. Abhishek Banerjee, the general secretary of the TMC, however, alleged on Tuesday that the EC, which was conducting the SIR of the electoral rolls in the state, had even served a notice to the economist for a hearing.

“On my way here, I was told that Nobel laureate Professor Amartya Sen, who had won laurels for our country in the field of economics, has been served with an SIR hearing notice,” Abhishek, the heir apparent of the TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, said at a rally at Rampurhat in Birbhum. He also referred to the similar SIR hearing notices served to celebrity Bengali film star Dev and cricketer Mohammed Shami. “The only way to respond to this insult is by winning in all the 11 state assembly constituencies in Birbhum.”

Sen, currently the Thomas W Lamont University Professor at Harvard University in the United States, often criticised the policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The EC’s notice to Sen has given the Trinamool Congress a new weapon to criticise the poll panel over the SIR of the electoral rolls – a process, which, according to the party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has been marred by “serious irregularities, procedural violations, and administrative lapses” in West Bengal.

A member of Sen’s family said that the enumeration form distributed by the EC for the SIR of the electoral rolls had been duly filled up for the economist and submitted to the concerned Booth Level Officer engaged by the commission for the revision.

Sources at the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of the state said that the BLO would go to the residence of Sen and collect the relevant documents required for the correction of some errors in the enumeration form.

The TMC has been alleging that the EC launched the SIR of the electoral rolls in West Bengal only to ensure that the BJP gets an edge in the forthcoming assembly elections in the state.

“Un-map from this state the Bangla Birodhi (anti-Bengal) BJP, which has made the people suffer such ignominy time and again,” Abhishek said at the rally on Tuesday.

The EC published the draft electoral rolls for West Bengal on December 16 after the first phase of the SIR, striking off over 58 lakh voters and cutting down the size of the electorate from 7.66 crore at the beginning of the year to 7.08 crore. In the second phase, which started on December 27, 1.67 crore voters under scrutiny are being summoned for hearings, including 1.36 crore flagged for logical discrepancies and 31 lakh whose current electoral roll details did not match or link to the records from the 2002 voter list. The number of voters with logical discrepancies, however, subsequently came down to 94.49 lakh.

“(The) 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,” Mamata, the TMC supremo, recently wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, 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.”

The TMC supremo alleged that elderly citizens, pregnant women and voters on oxygen support were being called for hearings for the SIR.