The Election Commission has informed the Supreme Court about “grave threats” to its staff and “intimidation” and “obstruction” during the conduct of the SIR exercise in Bengal, also accusing chief minister Mamata Banerjee of persistent
provocation.
The EC has sought appropriate directions to the Bengal government to ensure the smooth conduct of the process.
In its affidavit to the Supreme Court, the EC has cited as instances of intimidation “a statement by a sitting minister of West Bengal that he will break the legs of the Election Commission”, an MLA’s comment suggesting that the deletion of names during the SIR would be “playing with fire”, threats of physically restraining BLOs who fail to furnish earlier electoral rolls, and public declarations by the chief minister “explicitly urging the public to take the law into their own hands”.
The commission has made the allegations in response to the apex court’s notice to the poll panel on a writ petition filed by the Sanatani Sangsad seeking the deployment of state employees under the overall control of the EC to prevent any untoward incidents during the SIR drive in the run-up to the Bengal Assembly polls.
The EC said: “In stark contrast to the professed commitment to cooperation, the Hon’ble Chief Minister of the State has persistently delivered a series of public addresses that are inherently provocative, thereby engendering an atmosphere of intimidation among the election officials tasked with the preparation and revision of the electoral roll.”
The poll panel referred to the chief minister’s media conference on January 14 in which “she is reported to have engaged in fear-mongering, disseminated misleading and erroneous information regarding the SIR process, overtly threatened and targeted election officials, and sought to incite alarm amongst the electorate”.
According to the EC, while the enumeration phase of the SIR has been progressing seamlessly in various states, “regrettably, in the state of West Bengal, numerous occurrences of violence, intimidation and obstruction against election officials engaged in the SIR process have been documented”.
The EC noted “a pervasive reluctance among local police authorities to register FIRs in response to grievances articulated by BLOs”.
“In certain instances, FIRs were documented only subsequent to intervention by the DEO (district election officer), with arrests occurring belatedly thereafter,” the affidavit stated.
The EC accused the Bengal government of “wilfully neglecting” poll panel directives to lodge FIRs and implement disciplinary measures against those obstructing SIR work.
The EC listed the following instances:
- Attempted forceful entry into the office of the state’s chief electoral officer in Calcutta
- Breaking of police barricades and vandalisation of offices
- Obstructing public officials from discharging their duties
- Locking the CEO’s office from outside
- Preventing officers from entering and leaving the office complex, causing serious hindrance in the discharge of duties.
The poll panel said that after the publication of the draft rolls, the SIR exercise had entered the crucial “notice phase”, which it said was quasi-judicial in nature as it was one of the most pivotal and sensitive stages of the drive. The EC said the “cooperation from the state government... is all the more necessary and important” in the run-up to the polls.
