A delegation of top BJP leaders on Monday knocked on the doors of the Election Commission in Delhi with multiple concerns over and recommendations for the SIR on the eve of its rollout apparently to mount pressure on the ruling Trinamool Congress, which has made the voter scrutiny process a major issue against the saffron camp.
In a five-page letter to chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, the BJP alleged that several documents being used as proof of legitimate voter status had been forged in Bengal. It asked the EC not to accept documents issued after specific dates and demanded that the EC verify them independently to ensure that voters were genuine Bengal residents and not infiltrators.
“We informed the Election Commission that irregular documents have been issued in Bengal to regularise illegal infiltration. We have seen how documents issued by the Bengal government were found with illegal infiltrators across the country. The Mamata Banerjee government issued documents signed by officers who were not authorised to do so,” said Amit Malviya, BJP’s IT cell head and Bengal co-incharge.
Malviya was accompanied by BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya, the state’s deputy election in-charge and former Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb, and senior leader Om Pathak.
Union minister of state and Matua leader Shantanu Thakur, however, was not present in this delegation. A source said he had mistakenly reached the CEO’s office in Calcutta while the meeting was held in Delhi. In the written memorandum, Thakur's name was printed, but he could not sign the document as he was not present in Delhi, underlining the seeming lack of coordination among BJP leaders.
The BJP delegation demanded re-verification of documents such as birth certificates, residential certificates, caste certificates, and forest rights certificates — all of which would be used for inclusion of names in the post-SIR electoral rolls.
“We demanded that each piece of document be vetted by senior EC officials. The commission assured us that the sanctity of the documents would be maintained,” Malviya added.
Trinamool Congress rubbished the BJP’s allegations, claiming that the saffron party had floated a "false narrative" after realising that their plan behind the SIR had backfired in Bengal.
“The BJP understood their plan behind the SIR has backfired, as most of those who came from Bangladesh to Bengal are Hindus. They realised that their targeted group possesses all the required documents and the SIR will actually lead to the deletion of names of poor Hindu refugees living in Bengal for years,” said Trinamool spokesperson Arup Chakraborty.
Ensuring inclusion of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh, including the Matuas, has become a challenge for the BJP. The party is organising over 1,000 camps to help such voters apply for citizenship under the CAA-2019. Many Hindu refugees refrained from applying for citizenship out of fear of being identified as refugees by Trinamool's campaign, BJP sources said.