BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya on Monday met Union home minister Amit Shah in Delhi to discuss democratic changes in Bengal and spoke at length about election reforms on the floor of the Rajya Sabha, a day before the Election Commission publishes the draft electoral roll.
A source said that with the EC set to publish the draft electoral roll on Tuesday, Bhattacharya’s meeting with Shah and his speech on electoral reforms — largely focused on SIR-related issues and infiltration — indicated a move to set the narrative before the people of Bengal.
“The publication of the draft roll will be just the beginning. There are lakhs of voters where the age difference between the voter and their father is 15 years or less. There are lakhs of electors who are shown as couples but share the same father. So, a lot of things will take place during the SIR process as all of those will be sent notices,” Bhattacharya told The Telegraph when asked about his speech and meeting with Shah a day before the draft roll’s publication.
“We want to tell people that this is not only about election reforms; we have to ensure a clean electoral roll to protect the internal security of the country,” he added.
The Bengal BJP chief went to meet Shah, along with his Rajya Sabha colleague from Jharkhand, Deepak Prakash.
During his nearly 24-minute speech in the Rajya Sabha, Bhattacharya elaborately spoke about the challenges of infiltration, citing how parties opposing the “push-back” of infiltrators, including the Trinamool Congress and the CPM, had themselves acknowledged the problem in the past. He referred to statements by former chief minister Jyoti Basu and Mamata Banerjee on infiltration.
He said Basu, who had urged a humanitarian approach to the refugee and infiltration issue in the 1980s, later admitted in 1999 that infiltration was wreaking havoc on Bengal’s economy. Bhattacharya also referred to Mamata throwing papers at the then deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha in 2005 while demanding an electoral roll free of Bangladeshi infiltrators’ names.
“Those who once protested against infiltration are now attempting to keep infiltrators’ names on the electoral roll,” the MP said.
On Tuesday, the Election Commission will publish the draft electoral roll. Sources said that more than 58 lakh names — of absentee, shifted, deceased, and duplicate voters categories — will not feature in the draft. Reports have emerged that around 1.63 crore voters have been found with logical discrepancies, and the commission has decided to issue notices to them.
Among these voters are many whose age difference with their father is 15 years
or less.
While the Trinamool Congress has already pitched a narrative that the Election Commission, allegedly hand-in-glove with the BJP, is attempting to remove genuine voters from Bengal’s electoral rolls, the BJP has moved to counter the claim, asserting that the exercise is aimed not at deleting genuine voters but at removing infiltrators.
During his speech, Bhattacharya emphasised the need to put an end to infiltration and stressed that the issue cannot be resolved without a joint effort by both the state and central governments.
“Bengal is a border state, sharing around 2,200 km of border with Bangladesh. It is not possible for any single agency to prevent infiltration. It can only be stopped if the central and state governments work together and take multiple measures, including public awareness campaigns in border districts,” Bhattacharya said.