SIR credibility in West Bengal under doubt

There is all possibility of elections to West Bengal Assembly being reduced to a farce if urgent action is not initiated to ensure 60 lakh voters placed under the “Suspected” category are enabled to vote. The polling in the state is slated on April 23 and 29. The voters under “adjudication” category account for 8.09 per cent of the state electorate. There is a lack of definitive action to realise this objective. The Supreme Court has merely termed the situation a “trust deficit” between the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the State Govt. and ordered judicial supervision of the adjudication.

The 19 tribunals appointed for the purpose lack the wherewithal to handle the enormous task within a short timeline. Though the Supreme Court bench has directed  deployment of about 700 judicial officers from West Bengal, Odisha, and Jharkhand, the scale and dimension of the work seems to be too large to be concluded within the timeline before the elections. Affected voters may not be able to exercise the franchise as rules regarding roll freeze curtail the period further by two days before the poll.

While the Central Govt had contended that the SIR exercise was essential to “purify” the rolls in the backdrop of mass infiltration from Bangladesh, the state govt headed by Mamata Banerjee has alleged it to be a deliberate exercise to disenfranchise voters from Muslim minority and Matua Hindu Dalit voters. There have been allegations of disproportionate deletion of Muslim voters in Murshidabad, Malda, and Uttar Dinajpur. There are also indications that the SIR exercise instead of balancing the objective between cleansing of rolls and inclusion has chosen to follow the dictates of the Central dispensation of reshaping the electorate in a manner that it favours the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The contentious nature of the entire process casts doubt over elections being ‘fair and free’ as they ought to be to carry credibility. Media reports have cast doubt on the fairness of the exercises as high court judges, booth level officers, even a former woman chief secretary to the govt of West Bengal and war veterans are finding their names in the list of 60 lakh “suspected” voters, besides 30 lakh other names which have been deleted due to change of residence, death and duplication. While purging of ineligible voters was essential to ensure revision of rolls, it is equally necessary to opt for a methodology that makes error-free judgement in identifying the legitimate voter and ensure flexibility of schedule to inspire credibility of the process.