Trinamool on Monday gained another inch at the fortress that Nirvachan Sadan turns into whenever the party visits it nowadays.
Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee not only managed to take a full 15-member delegation into the poll panel’s HQ, she also staged a walkout claiming she had been humiliated when she tried to raise the harassment her state’s voters are facing because of the SIR.
In November, her party had disregarded the Election Commission’s cap of five MPs on a delegation and compelled the poll panel to receive double that number.
Besides Mamata, Monday’s delegation included Trinamool MPs Abhishek Banerjee and Kalyan Banerjee apart from 12 people, some of whom alleged the death of family members from “SIR induced anxiety”, while the rest were voters marked dead.
They went in wearing black shawls in protest against what the Trinamool chief described as a hurried SIR that was excluding genuine voters at the behest of the BJP.
After the meeting, she told reporters: “I was a minister four times and an MP seven times. I have never seen an Election Commission like this, one that is so arrogant.
“They are great liars. We told them that we respect the chair because no chair is permanent for anybody. One day you have to go. But don’t create such a precedent....
“You will end up like Dhankhar. You are acting out of the fear of Modi.”
Jagdeep Dhankhar was Bengal governor, and later Vice-President of India and Rajya Sabha Chairperson. He resigned last July, citing poor health, apparently after displeasing the government by accepting an impeachment motion moved by Opposition MPs in the Upper House against Justice Yashwant Varma.
In what seemed a jibe against chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Mamata said: “Will the public elect a government or will the EC? What else do you want? You only want for your daughter and son-in-law, to make her DM.... You have BJP’s power. We have people’s power. We boycotted them. They have insulted and humiliated us....
“He deliberately misbehaved with us. I said, ‘I am sorry we came to seek justice’.... I have no hope from the EC. They are BJP’s dalal, dalal, dalal (agents).... He spoke as if he was a zamindar and we were servants.”
A source in the commission said the poll panel had reiterated its demands from the Bengal government on the transfers of officials, action against errant officials, alleged hooliganism by Trinamool cadres, and the payment of a higher honorarium to the BLOs.
“(The) CEC responded to her queries and explained (the) rule of law shall prevail and anybody taking law into their own hands shall be dealt with strictly as per the provisions of law and powers vested in the commission,” the official said.
“TMC MLAs are openly using abusive and threatening language against the commission and especially against the CEC. Also threatening the election officials.”
The delegation submitted a memorandum demanding the withdrawal of the “logical discrepancy” summons and the abandonment of the logical discrepancy framework on spelling variations and age inconsistencies.
“Cease the unlawful interference of Micro-Observers in quasi-judicial decision-making, restore exclusive statutory authority to EROS and AEROs under the Representation of the People Act, 1950,” the memorandum said.
Its other demands included action against fraudulent deletion requests, removal of non-statutory personnel from electoral roll management, and institutional responsibility for the loss of lives.
In the Rajya Sabha, during the discussion on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, Trinamool MP Sagarika Ghose said: “A software has created this (SIR draft list). Can technological software determine citizenship? Can an algorithm be allowed....
“Does this government know the pain that citizens are going through because of this exercise? It doesn’t know because it is a grade D government, living-in-denial government.”
Before the meeting, police had barricaded Nirvachan Sadan, the roads around it, and four Bengal government guesthouses.
The police and central forces herded journalists into a small stretch of pavement near the commission, leading to several altercations.
Traffic was thrown out of gear as senior IPS officers marshalled personnel and buses to block the road to prevent any gathering near the poll panel HQ.
Mamata said that 100 “victims” of the SIR had come to the capital, and that the police were harassing them and restricting their movement out of state government guesthouses. She went to the Banga Bhavans in Chanakyapuri and Hailey Road and got the police to move away from the gates.
Special commissioner of police (perception management and media cell) Devesh Chandra Srivastava told reporters: “We didn’t restrict anyone living in Banga Bhavan and didn’t stop the entry or exit of people.Deployment outside the building was a part of security as the West Bengal chief minister has Z+ security.”
Additional reporting byImran Ahmed Siddiqui