Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP and general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday hit out at the Election Commission, demanding the publication of the list of voters with “logical discrepancies” in the enumeration forms which have been submitted during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
“On the day the draft electoral rolls were published, the EC said 1.36 crore voters had logical discrepancies in their forms. Where is this list? Why is the EC not publishing this list? If it wants to clean the list then why are they hiding the list? They had alleged that there were one crore Rohingya and Bangladeshis in Bengal. Then they should release the list of illegal immigrants,” Banerjee said.
“I will go to Delhi on December 31 to meet the chief election commissioner and seek answers. They wanted to capture Bengal through SIR. If the list is not released, we will gherao the EC office. Logical discrepancy data has to be made public,” he added.
The draft electoral roll for Bengal was published on December 16 which had around 58 lakh voter deletions.
Four days before the draft rolls were published, the EC said that 1.67 crore enumeration forms had “logical discrepancies”. Out of these, the EC had identified around 85 lakh voters with mismatched parents’ name when tallied with the 2002 list, the last time when the exercise was carried out in the state.
“It took the booth-level officers around a month to complete the process. How did the Election Commission arrive at this figure, that too hours after the draft roll was published?” Banerjee said.
The TMC MP further alleged that an official in the EC, whom he identified as Seema Khanna, had admitted in a private chat that the “logical discrepancy” figure was wrong. “I have the screenshots of the messages. Who is this woman? On whose instructions is she working? If I am lying she can file a case against me. We will submit this before the Supreme Court. But the commission has to release the names of these 1.36 crore voters,” he said.
Banerjee asserted that the Election Commission should send the list to all the political parties. “The political parties also have to verify whether the data published by the commission is correct. We have a list of 100 voters from Bengal who have been marked as deceased in the draft rolls. One of them is a Trinamool councillor in Dankuni municipality,” he said.
Banerjee alleged that for the last four years, Bengal has been selectively targeted.
Taking potshots at the BJP-led Centre, Banerjee said, “Many people have lost their lives from fear of SIR and NRC. Even five BLOs have died by suicide and 35 tried to commit suicide. Their families have said that they took the drastic step due to SIR pressure. In November-end, we had posed five questions to the EC but haven’t got any reply so far. For Bengal, not only have they stopped funds for the water scheme, 100-day work and infrastructural development, they also want to snatch the basic voting rights.”
“If the agenda is to identify infiltrators, then the list has to be made public. Secondly, if the objective was to send back Rohingya, then Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and states sharing international borders with Myanmar should also carry out SIR. If the idea is to send back illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, then why was SIR not conducted in Meghalaya and Mizoram?” Banerjee said.
While addressing the issue of suspended TMC MLA Humayun Kabir’s new party and Babri Masjid-replica, Abhishek said, “I do not see any construction starting. Where is this (Babri Masjid) being built? If they want to play politics over the temple and mosque issue, then what’s the difference between them and the BJP?… Humayun Kabir is a former BJP candidate. Everyone has the right to build a religious place, but they shouldn’t bring politics into it… If you are in politics, then build hospitals, schools.”