The Bengal Congress on Saturday demanded changes in the modalities of the special intensive revision of electoral rolls proposed for Bengal.
“What we understand is migrant labourers and married women stand to lose the most once the exercise is carried out. We are in agreement with the purpose of the exercise. But the result of SIR in Bihar has proved the Election Commission failed to fulfil it,” said Prasenjit Bose, state Congress leader. “Our main demand is the process for the SIR in Bengal should be simplified.”
“The EC has set a time limit of 30 days for the voters to submit the forms. For migrant labourers and women who have moved to a different address post marriage, it may not be possible to submit the form within 30 days. The EC should extend it to 60 days. Also, in 2002 when the EC had carried out the special revision of intensive nature regarding the electoral rolls, the BLOs went door-to-door and did the verification. A copy of the same was handed to the voters. In Bengal, the same should be done,” Prasenjit said.
Prasenjit said around 50 per cent of the 47 lakh voters deleted from the electoral rolls in Bihar, where elections will be held in two phases on November 6 and 11, were deleted erroneously.
“The removal of these names is not justified. The EC should act cautiously before going ahead with the exercise in Bengal. Cleansing of the electoral rolls is a must but that does not mean genuine voters have to be left out,” Prasenjit said.
The EC, when it published the final rolls for poll-bound Bihar on September 30 had stated names of 47 lakh voters were deleted from the 7.89 crore electorate before the SIR was carried out.
The Supreme Court, which will hear the petitions filed against the SIR in Bihar on November 4, has instructed the central poll panel to look into the typographical errors and other mistakes in the final list and come out with remedial measures.
The Bengal Congress leaders had met the state chief electoral officer Manoj Agarwal on Thursday and demanded an all-party meeting be held before the SIR process rolls out in Bengal.
Prasenjit also questioned the logic behind the central poll panel’s decision to consider the 2002 electoral rolls as the benchmark.
“Successive elections have been held since the 2002 exercise. Does it mean the elections were held with fake voters in the electoral rolls? The Narendra Modi government was elected on fake voters? Did the same happen for the last Assembly polls in Bengal?” he asked. “All the electoral rolls prepared by the EC till the 2021 Assembly polls should be considered.”
The Bengal Congress has also demanded the EC share the result of the electoral mapping exercise in a transparent manner.
Ghulam Mohammad Mir, the AICC general secretary and Bengal observer, questioned how the leader of Opposition in Bengal could claim names of 1.25crore voters will be deleted after SIR.
“Not even the chief election commissioner can answer this. After the exercise if the actual figure matches with the Opposition leader’s claim it would appear the BJP and not the EC had carried out the exercise,” Mir said.