Hours after the Trinamool Congress alleged discrepancies between the digital versions and the old preserved hard copies of the 2002 voters’ lists, party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Friday told a closed-door meeting of about 18,000 Booth-Level Agents (BLA) and elected representatives that the BJP was using the Election Commission of India to silently rig the elections and that the TMC would not sit silent and would not only take legal actions but also launch a fierce movement even if a single name of a genuine voter was deleted.
“We had said earlier, when the SIR was announced on October 27 in Bengal, that the BJP had an agenda. We said that SIR stands for Silent Invisible Rigging. Just like Bihar, they have issued instructions to do their version of SIR, and we will have to be vigilant and resist it democratically. We have protested in Parliament. We will take it up in the court and protest on the streets if a single name is deleted,” Banerjee said in the closed-door virtual meeting, inside sources said.
The meeting was held to formulate strategies to address situations if they emerged during the conduct of a special intensive revision of electoral rolls that would begin on November 4.
“We want you to remain alert. Already, the names of thousands of genuine voters are missing from the digital version of the voters’ list. These names were present in the old hard copies that are still available with us. Where have these names gone? Who has deleted these names? We seek answers and immediate restoration of those names to begin with the old copies and digital version must match,” he said, adding,” If names are deleted, then the ECI will see a drama in front of his office in Delhi.”
Asking the people’s representatives to remain by the side of the anxious voters, he said, “This dictatorial scheme” planned by the BJP and “imposed by the ECI” at its instance, “has created a mass anxiety among the people, forcing some of them to even commit suicide. This cannot be allowed and the TMC men must live by their sides.”
Earlier, party spokesperson and senior leader Kunal Ghosh also placed instances of discrepancies between the digital versions and the hard copies. Alleging a mismatch, he said, “The Election Commission has uploaded a digital version of the 2002 voter list, but many names that existed in the original hard copy are now missing.”
Incidentally, ECI guidelines say that the individuals whose names are present in the 2002 list would not be required to submit additional documents for verification during the current revision.
Citing a number of instances, Ghosh said, “In the 2002 hard copy of the voter list for booth number 2 in Natabari under the Cooch Behar Assembly constituency, there were 717 names. However, in the recently uploaded digital version of the same booth, only 140 names are visible. Where have the rest gone?”
Similarly, in booth number 160 of Mathabhanga College (room number 2), the 2002 list had 846 voters, but now there are only 416 names. In booth number 159 under Guma-1 Gram Panchayat of Habra-2 block in the Ashoknagar Assembly constituency, the 2002 voter list data is completely unavailable,” Ghosh said, alleging that in booth number 61, the data from serial numbers 343 to 414 were also missing.
On Friday, the TMC leadership once again showed lists from Bankura district and Ashoknagar in North 24 Parganas. In both the cases, the names of about 900-1000 voters were missing from the digital lists.
“The earlier hard copies are all stamped by the ECI, so their genuineness is beyond question and if they do not match the newer digital version, then something is wrong with the digital version. Either there is some technical error or this has been done intentionally. And mind your technical errors cannot take place in so many cases. So, it is a planned deletion to harass the voters,” Ghosh said.
They are thinking that, as it is a time-consuming process to reinclude names in the voters’ lists the time will elapse and the elections will end and they (BJP) will win via backdoor. But the TMC will not let that happen,” Ghosh said.