As the ongoing revision of electoral rolls in Bihar raises apprehensions among voters, as well as Opposition parties, neighbouring West Bengal which goes to elections next is watching warily. Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders have alleged that the real target of the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is West Bengal. In private, BJP insiders acknowledge that the exercise may prove crucial for the party.
West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee has accused the EC of “acting like a stooge of the BJP” in ordering the rushed SIR in Bihar, and asked whether it was a surreptitious way of implementing the National Register of Citizens (NRC). TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien has alleged that the decision to conduct the exercise in Bihar was taken after the BJP’s internal survey showed the party would win only “46-49 seats in the state”. TMC’s Krishnanagar MP Mahua Moitra is among those who have moved the Supreme Court challenging the SIR, with the court set to hear the petitions on Thursday.
A BJP leader did not deny the advantage the party was expecting in Bengal from the SIR, having always claimed widespread illegal immigration in the state and alleged that the ruling TMC has allowed it to bolster its votes. “The intensive revision of the electoral roll, weeding out illegal voters, and cleaning the voter lists will be crucial to the BJP’s West Bengal strategy,” the leader said.
He also pointed out that it was strategic that Bihar was chosen as the first state for the SIR, with glitches that arise during the drive removed for a more “compact” exercise in Bengal. Plus, with Bihar being an NDA-ruled state, the EC and the Centre can claim to be wholly “transparent” in their motives.
Another party functionary was more blunt, saying such an exercise was “more required for West Bengal”.
Moitra said the exercise was a ploy to disenfranchise millions of voters. “Announced just before the Bihar polls and under one year from Bengal polls, it is an out-and-out ploy to disenfranchise crores of marginalised voters, the poor, illiterate, migrant workers and backward castes, who will certainly not be able to provide documentation in time to qualify for enumeration in the voter lists. The BJP is using the EC as its special election machinery, and this exercise will be the absolute burial of an already dying free voting system,” she told The Indian Express.
The TMC MP also claimed that the revision was the only way for the BJP to be competitive in the West Bengal elections. “This mass disenfranchisement of voters in West Bengal is their last fallback option in a state where their assessment is below 50 seats.”
For the BJP, Bengal is a crucial frontier in its domination of national politics. Party leaders admit to this, while also pointing to the symbolic significance of Bengal as the birthplace of Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee.
Countering Moitra, BJP MP Raju Bista pointed out that such a revision of electoral rolls was mandated under the Representation of the People Act, 1950, to ensure their accuracy. “Mamata Banerjee’s assertion that the EC is targeting West Bengal by using Bihar as a pretext and invocation of the NRC are political tactics to create fear psychosis among the minorities,” he told The Indian Express.
The Darjeeling MP alleged that the West Bengal CM was worried more about “immigrant voters” — a euphemism for undocumented immigrants on voter rolls — whom the TMC had “imported and settled across various parts of West Bengal”. “She may be worried that all the illegal Rohingya and Bangladeshi ‘vote bank’ the TMC has created will be exposed through SIR,” Bista said. In April, Union Home Minister Amit Shah alleged that the Rohingya and Bangladeshis who enter India from Bangladesh get voter cards made in Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district.
The issue of undocumented immigration has been a political hot potato since last year, following the collapse of the Sheikh Hasina-led Bangladesh government. At the time, the state BJP’s narrative was that Hindus facing persecution in the neighbouring country were looking to find refuge in India and should be allowed entry. In January, Banerjee accused the Border Security Force of allowing “goons and murderers” from across the border to enter the state.
Bengal and ‘tainted’ voter lists
However, the allegations of illegal migration and electoral roll manipulation in Bengal predate TMC rule, and, while in the Opposition, Mamata Banerjee was, in fact, on the other side of the debate. On July 21, 1993, Banerjee, then a Youth Congress leader, was injured while leading a march to the state Secretariat against alleged voter list manipulation by the Left Front government. The Youth Congress demanded that photo voter IDs be made mandatory to ensure fair elections. Thirteen Congress workers were killed in police firing to contain the protesters, and since the TMC was formed, the “July 21 Martyrs’ Day” has been an annual flagship event for the party.
During Congress-led UPA’s tenure at the Centre, Banerjee tried several times to get the Lok Sabha to discuss “illegal migrants in voter list” and in 2005, stormed the Well of the House and threw papers at the Chair — Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal was presiding at the time — after Speaker Somnath Chatterjee rejected a discussion on the matter.
By the time the BJP came to power and introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, the TMC was in government in Bengal. Banerjee took a stand against the Bill and said she would not allow its implementation in Bengal; the Bill was subsequently passed and became a law that makes the path to citizenship easier for persecuted immigrants from neighbouring countries, effectively leaving out only Muslims.
Senior CPI(M) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said Banerjee herself had given the “undesired weapon to the RSS and BJP”, which they were now using, “calling the poor infiltrators”. “West Bengal faced a crisis due to Partition. But what is happening now is a designed campaign that alleges Bengal is flooded with infiltrators. Mamata Banerjee started it and now it has become handy for the BJP and RSS,” he said.
However, Bhattacharya agreed that the Bihar SIR was just the first step, and the BJP’s eye was on Bengal. But he said it would not be easy for the party. “There will be pushback from people. You cannot harass the poor and call them illegal immigrants. It is a total violation of basic human rights.”