New Delhi, Nov 3 The process of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of West Bengal’s electors' roll has been turned into a political game of narratives – spreading rumours and uncertainty, leading to panic, even alleged deaths by suicide. In a move that can further heighten tensions, West Bengal’s ruling and principal Opposition parties are both reportedly planning two separate rallies in the state on Tuesday to amplify respective narratives around the process of SIR.
Incidentally, the Election Commission of Inda (ECI) begins its house-to-house verification from the same day (Tuesday). As the state election office races against time to train Booth Level Officers (BLOs) on the use of the mobile application, enumeration forms, and other tools and procedures before the process kicks off on November 4, it faces protests over safety concerns and workload from this vital workforce.
Some BLOs have raised concerns over security and safety following threats coming from political parties, including the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party.
Threats include “rivers of blood” flowing in case of deletion of voters’ names from rolls, and party Booth Level Agents (BLAs) being told to “shadow” BLOs during the exercise.
Meanwhile, the state’s principal Opposition, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders have been reiterating their claims that more than a crore of fraudulent entries will be deleted from voters’ list during the process.
Now, Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, intends to hold a rally at Agarpara, in nearby North 24 Parganas on the same day, demanding the removal of “intruders” through the SIR.
Incidentally, on Saturday, November 1, Abhishek visited the residence of Pradip Kar, who died by suicide in Agarpara, reportedly mentioning in his diary “fear of NRC” (National Register of Citizens – an effort from the Government of India to document all Indian citizens, aimed at distinguishing legal citizens from illegal immigrants).
Blaming the Union government and the Election Commission for the suicide, he promised to take to the streets in protest.
There have been allegations of illegal immigrants, especially from neighbouring Bangladesh, having registered their names as electors in the state.
The rising political temperature this winter has thus made the enumerators wary of a backlash from either side while discharging their duties on the ground.
The fears have been aggravated with current reports of the Trinamool planning a rally in Kolkata to raise “widespread fears” of “large-scale disenfranchisement” through SIR.
The rally will be led by the party’s top two leaders, Chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and her nephew and General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool’s three-time MP from Diamond Harbour.
In adjoining Bihar, similar allegations of aiming to arbitrarily remove voters’ names had been raised by the Opposition during the course of the SIR process from ECI.
Days of similar diatribes over “widespread fears” of “large-scale disenfranchisement” ended with the process delisting only 3.66 lakh names, and adding 21.53 lakh eligible electors.
Yet, the exercise has again snowballed into a major war of attrition with the poll body announcing SIR initiation in a dozen states.
In Kolkata, the Trinamool is likely to begin its march from B.R. Ambedkar’s statue and end at the residence of Rabindranath Tagore, in what is being seen as an effort to link SIR with the Constitution of India and the recent language controversy over Bengali.
Between the claims and counter-claims from political parties, West Bengal prepares for Assembly elections, to be held in the earlier part of next year.
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