Will Seek Legal Help: Mamata Banerjee Says Can Go To Supreme Court On SIR

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said today that she will go to court to challenge the special intensive revision of voter lists or SIR in the state ahead of the coming assembly election. The Trinamool has claimed that a number of poll officials and voters have died due to pressure over the SIR process and two police cases have been filed against the Commission. 

"We have fight it out. We are also seeking legal help," Mamata Banerjee said today. "Tomorrow, we will move court. So many people have died. So many have faced harassment. If need be, I will appeal on behalf of the people in the Supreme Court and speak for the people," Banerjee added. 

Ahead of the state elections, block offices have been turning into pits of anxiety as the second phase of SIR started in the state. Across rural and urban Bengal, the scenes at the hearing centres have transformed what was intended as a technical exercise into a deeply emotive public issue.

Elderly, disabled and vulnerable voters can be seen making long journeys and loss of livelihood to prove they are "legitimate" electors. Octogenarians are arriving on stretchers or leaning on relatives, persons with disabilities crawling across office floors, and daily wage earners forfeiting income from fear that their names may be struck off the electoral rolls.

The Election Commission has found 91.46 lakh cases of "logical discrepancy" in course of "progeny-mapping" during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bengal. These 91.46 lakh cases are in addition to the 58.20 lakh of "excluded voters" and 30 lakh "unmapped" voters -- meaning those who have been unable to establish any link with the 2002 voters list either through "self-mapping" or "progeny-mapping".

In November, a ten-member delegation of MPs of the ruling Trinamool Congress had met the Election Commission and said that SIR was being conducted in an 'unplanned' and 'heartless' manner. The party has claimed that 40 election officials have died during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision. 

The Bengal police have filed two cases against the Commission as well following complaints from the families of two voters who died after receiving hearing notices as part of the ongoing SIR process.

The Election Commission has rejected all the allegations, which, it said in a statement, are "premeditated, unsubstantiated and a crude attempt to browbeat officers".

"Such intimidatory tactics designed to threaten the election machinery into submission and derail the process are undoubtedly destined to fail," the statement read.

(With PTI inputs)