BJP national president Nitin Nabin on Wednesday held chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her government responsible for the alleged harassment of people during the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR), amid growing concerns within the party about whether the Election Commission's exercise would boomerang on them ahead of the Assembly polls.
“Now, Mamata Didi is going to Delhi to cry and claim that the Election Commission has not been helping her. The Election Commission's representatives are state government officials such as DMs, SPs and SDOs, and you (Mamata) are using them as puppets, you are playing the actual game and harassing the people of this land,” Nabin said, addressing BJP functionaries in Durgapur on Wednesday afternoon.
"You (Mamata) are harassing youths, businessmen and other people by calling them (for SIR hearings) at the DM office and then accusing the Election Commission of doing so,” the BJP national chief added.
He also backed the Election Commission, claiming that the constitutional body had taken an oath to exclude infiltrators and warned state government officials not to act as puppets of the ruling Trinamool Congress.
Nabin’s statement came at a time when a section of the BJP leadership believes that the ongoing SIR hearings have been backfiring on the party.
Last year, the BJP had welcomed the SIR with much fanfare and claimed that lakhs of Rohingya and Bangladeshi Muslims would be struck off Bengal's electoral rolls.
However, as months passed, the tide seemed to turn after the Election Commission began summoning nearly 1.36 crore voters on the grounds of logical discrepancies, including misspelt names and surnames.
Many poor people had to make long and costly journeys to hearing centres, often at the expense of their daily wages, and then stand in long queues.
Voices rose, accuse the EC of deliberately harassing people, including the poor, the aged and the ailing, in the name of hearing summons.
Many in the BJP believe that Trinamool effectively picked up the harassment narrative, and ongoing protests and campaigns were starting to change public mood, even among some BJP supporters at the grassroots.
Besides the summoning of over 1.36 crore people — on average, one person from each family — the exercise has reportedly sidelined issues of anti-incumbency against the three-time Mamata Banerjee government.
“With the SIR hearings, almost all anti-incumbency issues have disappeared from focus. However, people of Bengal are aggrieved with the state government over a series of corruption charges, concerns over women’s safety and numerous incidents related to law and order. Even the strong Hindutva pitch that peaked earlier now appears to have faded,” said a BJP leader.
As SIR hearing notices were served to several well-known personalities from Bengal, including Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, poet Joy Goswami and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s nephew Chandra Bose, along with Trinamool MPs, MLAs and ministers, it strengthened Trinamool's claim that the SIR’s sole aim was to harass people.
Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, who spoke just before Nabin on Wednesday, directly accused Mamata's bureaucrats of helping the ruling party divert attention from key issues, indicating the party was worried about the "fading anti-incumbency".
“Who is responsible for harassment over the SIR? It is the Trinamool administration. The chief electoral officer is the only official directly under the Election Commission. It is Mamata Banerjee’s government that provided nearly 90,000 booth-level officers. The AEROs, EROs and DEOs are state government employees who conduct elections. These officials are intentionally trying to cover up corruption, appeasement, atrocities against women and joblessness by harassing common people,” Adhikari said, urging BJP workers to protest against such harassment by state officials.
Trinamool, however, hit back at BJP national president Nabin, claiming he had exposed the Election Commission as an agent of his party in harassing lakhs of people in Bengal.
“The BJP national president has openly defended the Election Commission, and this proves that the electoral body has been working as an agent of the BJP," said Trinamool spokesperson Arup Chakraborty.
"Now that their mission of harassing the people of Bengal has been exposed, they are trying to blame the state government with a weak narrative. However, the people of Bengal understand their real intentions, and the BJP will get a befitting reply in the upcoming Assembly polls,” Chakraborty said.