Addressing a press conference here, Bhattacharya, who is one of the petitioners challenging SIR before the Supreme Court, also claimed that the exercise has led to “chaos” in the state.
He alleged that it was aimed at “stealing” the upcoming assembly polls in favour of the ruling BJP-led NDA.
“The EC’s claim of foreign nationals living in Bihar is bewildering. We would like to know whether any such complaints were received last year when a summary revision of electoral rolls was conducted ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. We wonder whether even the BJP had come up with such an allegation. If not, from where have these alleged foreign nationals cropped up”, asked the Left leader.
Even in Parliament, the Narendra Modi government at the Centre had submitted in 2019 that only three complaints of foreign nationals finding their way into the voters’ list had come to light, Bhattacharya claimed.
“In Bihar, we wonder if people from the Dalit community Mushahar have been identified as Myanmarese nationals,” he said.
Notably, the countries from where the EC has found immigrants living in the state include Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar.
Bhattacharya pointed out that the matter of Nepalese nationals was tricky since “many people living in the bordering districts have relatives in both neighbouring countries”.
He also voiced displeasure over Muslim migrant labourers allegedly being branded as Bangladeshis.
“Till now, only Bengali-speaking migrants were being dubbed as infiltrators and subject to harassment, but now the Hindi-speaking ones from Bihar are also in the crosshairs,” he claimed.
He alleged that the EC had boasted of having enough manpower for completing the mammoth exercise before the July 25 headline, while the media is flooded with Booth Level Officers (BLOs) being “overworked”.
“The EC had claimed that every voter would get two copies of the enumeration forms, of which one would have to be submitted and the other could be retained by the households for records. But few people have received more than one copy”, claimed the CPI(ML) leader.
“Moreover, days have passed since the Supreme Court advised the EC to consider including Aadhar card and ration card in the list of acceptable documents for the SIR, but the commission is yet to act on the same,” he alleged.
This would leave “millions of voters at the mercy of Election Registration Officers” who have been empowered to decide on people who fail to submit the requisite documents, Bhattacharya claimed.
“We have apprised the EC of our reservations. The EC has, interestingly, now asked all political parties to send their delegation separately. We will do so and repeat what we have already said. Our contention remains that this exercise has led to chaos and must be stopped, and assembly elections be held on the basis of the voters’ list for last year’s Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
“We reiterate that it is an attempt at vote-bandi, like the note-bandi we saw during demonetisation. The aim is to steal the elections in favour of the ruling coalition. The trick has been played earlier in Maharashtra”, alleged the CPI(ML) leader.
But in Bihar, such a “design is unlikely to succeed”, he claimed.
The people here are aware and have already started coining slogans like “chunav chor gaddhi chhor (stealer of elections, give up the seat of power)”, he said.
Bhattacharya also deplored the lodging of an FIR against journalist Ajit Anjum, whose Youtube channel is running a series on SIR, and the alleged mistreatment of Mahatma Gandhi’s great grandson Tushar Gandhi, who had come out in support of the Mahagathbandhan in East Champaran district.
“Both these incidents are proof that the BJP-led coalition does not believe in freedom of expression, which is a basic right in any democracy”, alleged the Left leader. PTI NAC BDC
