Kolkata: Trinamool Congress on Friday sought a fixed timeline from the Centre for discussions on Bihar's special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and Operation Sindoor. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, the party's deputy leader in Lok Sabha, made the demand during an all-party meeting convened by Speaker Om Birla where Union ministers Arjun Meghwal and Kiren Rijiju were present.
Dastidar said the Speaker informed her that discussion on Operation Sindoor would begin Monday but did not commit to a timeframe to discuss SIR. According to her, the Speaker cited a UPA-era rule that stated: "EC, being an autonomous body, its functions cannot be discussed on the floor of the House.
""Discussions on Operation Sindoor are important. We too want to know where the perpetrators went. But the discussions must include SIR. The UPA logic doesn't hold because EC has now become a BJP party office," Dastidar told reporters outside Parliament. "SIR is a dark shadow on our democracy. Overnight, eligible voters are being struck off voter rolls. This hits (at) the core of our democracy," she added.
Trinamool MPs were part of continuing protests in Parliament on Friday. The party's leader in the Rajya Sabha, Derek O'Brien, said, "The SIR issue is TMC's top priority. EC has a mandate to conduct elections as a constitutional body, but we cannot allow genuine citizens who are voters to be removed.
""We will talk to like-minded parties. We should also gherao the EC. It is operating like a BJP branch office. They are depriving people of their rights. This is not just about Bihar. It's a dangerous ploy nationally. We want Parliament to run; every opposition party wants Parliament to run. We want discussion under any rule on SIR. If the govt does not allow that, it means they want to disrupt the House," O'Brien said.
Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra, who had moved the SC on this issue, told ANI: "Such a thing has never happened in the history of India. The EC, which is a constitutional body, is working as a branch of the BJP. CEC speaks like a spokesperson of the BJP... In 24 hours, the number of untraceable voters went from over 11,000 to more than 1 lakh... If the home ministry is trying to say that there are 56 lakh illegal voters in Bihar, where did they come from?"