West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has escalated her criticism of the Election Commission of India (ECI) over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, questioning the appointment of micro-observers for the process. Banerjee has described the SIR as a "game of destruction," alleging that the ECI is acting with political bias and undermining the democratic process.
Banerjee's primary concern revolves around the ECI's decision to appoint central government employees as micro-observers for SIR hearings without informing the state government. She has directed her party's Booth Level Agents (BLAs) to gather detailed information about these observers, including their place of work and residence, arguing that many of them lack knowledge of the local language and are thus unfit to conduct hearings effectively. She also accused the poll panel of housing “a BJP agent in its office” and “altering electoral rolls as per his advise”.
The SIR aims to rectify discrepancies and update the electoral rolls. However, Banerjee contends that the process has been riddled with errors and irregularities, leading to the exclusion of a large number of eligible voters. According to reports, the draft electoral rolls published after the enumeration phase saw the exclusion of 58,20,899 names, reducing the electorate in West Bengal to 7.08 crore. Additionally, around 1.36 crore entries have been flagged for "logical discrepancies," and 30 lakh voters were categorized as unmapped, many of whom are likely to be called for verification hearings. The 'unmapped' are those who could not establish their fathers'/grandfathers' names in the 2002 voter list.
Banerjee has written multiple letters to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, expressing her reservations about the SIR and urging the ECI to rectify the glitches or halt the process. She has also alleged that the ECI is not accepting the family register as valid proof of identity, compelling citizens, including the elderly and seriously ill, to travel long distances for centralized hearings.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has also raised concerns about the deletion of voters with non-Bengali surnames during the SIR. The party has questioned why central government officers were appointed as micro-observers in West Bengal when other states with similar deletion percentages were not subjected to the same measure.
The BJP has dismissed Banerjee's allegations as baseless and exaggerated. Suvendu Adhikari, a BJP leader, challenged Banerjee to prove that even one of the 3,000 micro-observers is from another state, vowing to apologize if proven wrong. He also accused Banerjee of being unhappy about the appointment of special observers without consulting the state government because she “missed the opportunity of posting bureaucrats loyal to her for the job”.
Meanwhile, the ECI has stated that notices are being sent to unmapped voters, and hearings will be conducted under the supervision of micro-observers. The Election Commission will review the process and address concerns about the language skills of the micro-observers. A delegation from the Election Commission was expected to visit the state to review the progress of the SIR of the electoral rolls.
