New Delhi: A delegation of Trinamool Congress MPs met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Friday and stated they’d “blood on their palms” linking the deaths of a minimum of 39 individuals, together with 4 booth-level officers (BLOs) in West Bengal, to the continued Particular Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral register.
The TMC delegation, comprising 5 Lok Sabha MPs and 5 Rajya Sabha MPs, held a gathering lasting about an hour and a half with all members of Delhi’s Election Fee.
“We began the assembly by saying that the CEC is bleeding. We raised 5 questions,” TMC Rajya Sabha MP and chief Derek O’Brien informed reporters after the assembly. TMC members had been allotted 40 minutes to share their views, after which Mr. Kumar spoke for about an hour.
Derek O’Brien careworn that TMC isn’t against the idea of SIR. “Nevertheless, we strongly oppose the haphazard and heartless method through which the CEC and the Election Fee proceed with their work in a totally ruthless method.”
On the assembly, the TMC delegation submitted a listing of names allegedly affected by SIR. In response to the social gathering, 39 individuals have died as a consequence of SIR, together with 4 BLOs. The social gathering additionally claimed that 15 BLOs fell unwell because of the stress of the train and are present process remedy.
“Who might be answerable for these lives misplaced? The Election Fee or CEC Gyanesh Kumar? We’ve seen how BLOs have been given little assist, insufficient coaching, and unrealistic deadlines, and who’ve been put beneath stress to the purpose that many individuals find yourself getting sick and dying. Are these avoidable deaths not by the hands of the Election Commissioner?” a TMC lawmaker stated on the assembly.
Officers stated one of many 5 questions posed by the delegation involved the “actual goal” of the SIR. The social gathering alleged that Bengalis had been being particularly singled out and focused within the title of cleansing up the voter rolls, and hinted that the social gathering meant to make use of Bengali id points to counter SIR forward of the 2026 West Bengal meeting polls.
TMC Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra later informed reporters exterior the EC workplace that the CEC was turning a blind eye to the deaths, which many opposition events blamed on “inhuman stress” by the ECI.
“If infiltration is the issue, why are states like Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur, which border Bangladesh and Myanmar, neglected of this course of? Even in Assam, the EC didn’t enact an SIR and as a substitute opted for an eyewash within the title of particular modification,” Moitra stated.
The second section of the SIR introduced by the EC covers 12 states and union territories, together with Uttar Pradesh, election-bound states of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
Assam may even go to polls in early 2026, however the EC has excluded it from this SIR spherical, noting that the state is topic to totally different citizenship provisions beneath the legislation and that the Nationwide Register of Residents, a citizenship verification course of overseen by the Supreme Courtroom, is already underway within the state.
As a substitute, the EC ordered a separate particular revision of Assam’s electoral roll to incorporate door-to-door verification by booth-level officers quite than a whole SIR enumeration course of.
The TMC delegation additionally asserted that if the identical electoral roll “which the ECI is presently questioning” is nice sufficient for the 2024 normal elections, it ought to be accepted as properly now.
“Why have these lists instantly develop into unreliable inside a 12 months? And if the lists are actually unreliable, why not dissolve the MPs elected by these unreliable voters,” Moitra stated.
TMC MPs additionally highlighted the current amendments within the norms for appointment of Sales space Stage Brokers or BLAs. They’re appointed by political events to enhance the work of the BLO, who’s often a civil servant. Till the modification, the BLA needed to be a registered voter within the sales space through which it operated.
As per the revised guidelines, the BLA doesn’t must belong to the identical sales space and may belong to any sales space inside the parliamentary constituency. “This doesn’t reek of bigotry and partisan practices that you’re attempting to deal with, however does it in the end undermine constitutional autonomy?” the delegation requested.
“In Bengal, the BJP leaders are claiming to take away the names of 1 billion voters from the rolls. The ECI has not acknowledged any of those feedback and has not refuted the fear-mongering by the BJP. This leaves us with two questions: Is the ECI appearing on the orders of the BJP? Can each sacred provision now be tampered with to swimsuit the coverage targets of a single social gathering?” the TMC delegation added in its submission.
(Edited by Vinny Mishra)
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