Bengal SIR: Days after the Election Commission of India summoned Nobel laureate Amartya Sen for a hearing amid the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, the 92-year-old economist Saturday said the exercise was being conducted “in a hurry” and that voters did not have adequate time to submit required documents.
Amartya Sen was served a notice from the West Bengal Election Chief Electoral Office for a hearing at his Santiniketan residence on January 16 owing to a “logical discrepancy” in his enumeration form. An official said the “age difference between him and his mother is less than 15 years” as per the form.
Speaking from Boston, Sen told news agency PTI, “When they questioned my right to vote from my home constituency in Santiniketan – from where I have voted earlier, and where my name, address and other details are registered in official records – they questioned me about my deceased mother’s age at my date of birth, even though, as a voter herself, my mother’s details, like mine, were stored also in their own official records.”
“Like many Indian citizens born in rural India (I was born in the then village of Santiniketan), I do not have a birth certificate, and my eligibility to vote required further paperwork to be presented on my behalf,” he said. Sen expressed concern for citizens who lack similar assistance.
He said that the SIR done carefully with adequate time would mark a good democratic procedure, but “this is not happening in West Bengal.” “I have been told by those who seem to know more, that the BJP will benefit from the under-accounting,” Sen said.
“The SIR is being done in a hurry, with inadequate time for people with voting rights to have sufficient opportunity to submit documents to vindicate their entitlement to vote in the coming assembly elections. This is both unjust to the electorate and unfair to Indian democracy,” he said.
Pointing at the “class bias,” Sen said, “The documents needed for being allowed into the new electoral roll are often difficult to obtain for the underdogs of society.”
“Another possibility to look into may relate to the difficulties that minority communities sometimes face in getting their rights, including voting rights, respected. Indian Muslims are sometimes relegated to disadvantaged positions through the activism of the recently bolstered Hindutva extremists. Some categories of Hindus also may face discrimination and targeting.” Sen said.
Sen said that the ECI and the Supreme Court must make sure no adult Indian citizen faces difficulty in qualifying for voting. He warned that the exercise is being conducted with “undue haste”, and it may jeopardise democratic participation.
The exercise continues in West Bengal with a lot of commotion in political circles regarding its credibility.
Responding to petitioner Dola Sen, a Trinamool Congress MP, in the Supreme Court, the poll body defended its actions to issue notices to electors flagged for “logical discrepancies,” saying there were 2.06 lakh voters in West Bengal who had been linked to six or more children.
The SIR in West Bengal is poised to get delayed after the top court on Monday issued certain directions to the ECI to ensure scrutiny of voters. The deadlines for SIR hearings in West Bengal and final electoral roll publication are February 7 and 14, respectively.
A senior ECI official said, “After the Supreme Court directions, it is almost impossible to complete all hearings within the stipulated time and make a flawless final electoral roll.”