The Left Front leaders, who had marched to the office of the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in Kolkata on Wednesday afternoon over the alleged discrepancies in the SIR exercise in West Bengal, decided to sit on a night-long dharna after they could not meet CEO Manoj Agarwal.
The dharna was being led by 85-year-old senior CPI(M) leader Biman Bose, Md Salim, and Sujan Chakraborty, among others.
“We came here to give a deputation to the CEO of West Bengal. It is the tradition in a democratic framework. But the police stopped us. We abide by democratic rules, and we are gathered here to protest. We are fighting against the attempt to divide the society in terms of religion and colours,” Bose, who is also the Left Front chairperson, said.
The Left leaders said that they would continue to sit on a night-long dharna till the CEO meets them.
Accusing the police of trying to forcibly remove them, Salim said, “We know when (Chief Minister) Mamata Banerjee will do dharna, this same police will stand beside her with folded hands. However, they are now trying to stop us. We will not stop. Our protest will continue.”
He was referring to the chief minister’s dharna against the SIR at Metro Channel in Esplanade from Friday.
The Left leaders alleged that the Election Commission (EC), at the behest of the BJP and RSS, was deliberately removing the names of Muslims, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes and women voters from the electoral roll during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
“The Election Commission is executing this plan on the orders of the BJP. The reality is that in this state, the District Magistrates, SDOs, and BDOs are also helping them. We are all watching this,” said Salim.
“The Electoral system itself is being destroyed. The Election Commission has done this SIR, as per the directions of the BJP and RSS. The real criteria based on Assembly seats has been religion and region, as the RSS wanted. People’s voting rights have been taken away by the TMC with weapons, and RSS is doing the same with the help of the Election Commission,” he said.
Asserting that suffrage is a basic condition of democracy, Salim said, “The voters’ list should be free of errors; fake, dead voters should be excluded. But the plot to disenfranchise the people of Bengal cannot be allowed to succeed. An all-out resistance should be built to protect the voting rights,” the senior CPI(M) leader added.
The Left’s protest march to the CEO’s office was backed by the Samajwadi Party and other smaller parties in the state.
Mostari Banu from Murshidabad district who had filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the SIR, also took part in the dharna.