The BJP has been leaving no stone unturned to ensure a successful special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in Bengal, where the party knows conducting the process smoothly will not be easy, unlike in Bihar.
The SIR seemed to have played a significant role in the NDA’s landslide victory in Bihar.
The leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, on Monday produced multiple electoral documents to showcase how duplicate entries of voters persisted in the electoral rolls, along with the names of many dead voters.
With the help of a “PowerPoint” presentation at the BJP’s state headquarters at 6, Murlidhar Sen Lane, he displayed documents from 20 Assembly constituencies to claim that the names of at least 50–150 dead voters figured in the electoral roll of each of the 20 polling booths.
“In Bihar, the close allies of the Trinamool Congress — the RJD and others — attempted to resist the SIR to protect illegal Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants and Rohingyas. However, they were unsuccessful there. In Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s party has been opposing the SIR and trying to resist it. However, the BJP has been monitoring everything that is going wrong with the SIR in the state. We believe that the names of at least 80 per cent of ineligible voters in four categories will be deleted from the draft electoral roll to be published on December 9,” said Adhikari.
Adhikari claimed that a rough estimate showed that the names of one crore voters in four categories — multiple duplicate entries, dead voters, double entries in the same booth, and illegal infiltrators — would be deleted from the electoral rolls. By showing those documents, he hinted that the BJP had been maintaining strong vigilance over the electoral roll and marking those who were ineligible.
A source said that, besides mounting pressure on the Election Commission for a successful SIR, the BJP had already instructed workers to keep surveillance on the electoral roll of each booth. Once the draft roll is published, they will compare it with their records to ensure that all fake and ineligible names are deleted.
A high-level Election Commission team from Delhi, headed by deputy election commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, will visit Bengal from November 18 to 21 to oversee the SIR process.
Adhikari said that the BJP, led by Sisir Bajoria, had already sought time to inform the commission about irregularities in the electoral roll, including the presence of dead voters’ names.
Adhikari alleged that in a significant number of booths where the BJP had no BLAs, the local BLOs had not been distributing enumeration forms to many electors, violating norms. While the BJP has appointed nearly 50,000 BLAs, the Trinamool Congress and the CPM have given the names of 52,000 and 30,000
BLAs, respectively.
He urged the Election Commission to open a helpline number for those facing difficulties in receiving their forms. He also issued a 48-hour ultimatum to distribute enumeration forms to all voters who had not yet received them.
The Nandigram MLA also accused some district officials involved in election work of instructing BLOs to falsely show all forms as distributed, despite a large number of forms not being given to voters, particularly those who have permanently shifted.
“We are keeping all the documents and request the BLOs to maintain proper records of form distribution for the electoral roll,” he said.
A senior leader said that Adhikari had been keeping party workers active and the Election Commission under pressure to ensure that the SIR process was successful in Bengal, where the state government was not cooperating in conducting the exercise.
“It will not be as easy as in Bihar, where the party was in power and could ensure a proper SIR and publish fresh and purified electoral rolls. So, the BJP has been trying to maintain a parallel monitoring system to ensure that Trinamool cannot manipulate the process,” said a BJP leader.
BLO grievance
A section of BLOs complained that in many places, they had been instructed to digitise 120 forms daily, in addition to collecting them from electors. They said it would be an impossible task as it took at least four–five minutes to upload an elector’s details into the mobile application, meaning they would need at least 10 hours a day to complete the work.
Swapan Mandal, general secretary of Votekarmi and the BLO Aikya Mancha, said: “The commission has been mounting inhumane pressure on the BLOs, instead of helping them. There are no data entry operators, and the commission has been trying to finish the process before November 25. We demand that the commission follow the stipulated December 4 timeline to complete the process.”