Following the recent publication of draft electoral rolls in West Bengal, which reportedly saw 58 lakh voters deleted during the revision process, political tensions have escalated over the transparency of the data. The state is currently in the “hearings” phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), where claims and objections are being processed. This exercise has been clouded by the Election Commission’s earlier assertion that over 1.36 crore enumeration forms contained “logical discrepancies” – a figure that has drawn intense scrutiny from the state’s ruling party.
Against this backdrop, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP and general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday criticised the Election Commission (EC) and demanded that it release the specific list of voters flagged for these discrepancies.
Referring to the EC’s claim made on the day the draft electoral rolls were published, Banerjee said, “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.”
Warning of protest, Delhi visit announced
He further warned of protests if the data is not shared. “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,” Banerjee said.
The draft electoral roll for West Bengal was published on December 16 and reportedly saw the deletion of around 58 lakh voters. Four days before this publication, the EC had said that 1.67 crore enumeration forms contained “logical discrepancies”, according to a report by The Indian Express.
According to the commission, about 85 lakh voters had mismatched parents’ names when compared with the 2002 voter list, the last time such an exercise was conducted in the state.
Questioning the EC’s process, Banerjee said, “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 also alleged that a senior EC official had admitted the figures were incorrect. He claimed that an official named Seema Khanna acknowledged in a private chat that the “logical discrepancy” number 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.
Demand to share data with political parties
He added that the EC should share the list with all political parties for verification. “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,” Banerjee said.
The TMC leader alleged that West Bengal has been deliberately targeted over the past four years. Attacking the BJP-led Centre, he 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.”
Raising questions about the EC’s intent, Banerjee added, “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?”