SERIOUS ATTEMPT TO SABOTAGE FORTHCOMING ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS IN WEST BENGAL

What seems to be a deliberate planning to sabotage the democratic process with an eye to assembly elections in West Bengal, due next year, falsification of electoral rolls through inclusion of thousands of fake voters is being attempted in the state. Thousands of fictitious and illegal affidavits have been prepared and illegally deposited in the office of electoral officers. In fact, the number is in the range of more than 50 lakhs. The Left Front has drawn attention of the Election Commission to this matter, requesting an urgent intervention. The Left leaders also met Chief Election Commissioner in Delhi and alleged that the mischievous attempt was of such a magnitude that unless defeated this would lead to large-scale falsification of the electoral rolls and distort the ensuing Assembly elections as a whole.

The perversion is being done through a manner, unprecedented in the state. In the summary revision that has been done in July this year, the total number of Form-6 applications for addition of new names to be included in the draft electoral rolls as part of the SRER has reached 56,19,057. This is an unusually inflated number of applications. Roughly 56 lakh proposed additions over the total number of electors amounting to 5,24,21,616 works out to a more than 10 per cent increase. Given the fact that the net addition in the preceding four years – 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 – were -0.5 per cent, 1.83 per cent, 2.38 per cent and 1.45 per cent respectively, clearly show abnormality of an unusual magnitude.

The following table will show the actual picture:

No. of electors in Draft Rolls
4,80,95,009
4,78,39,290
5,04,11,682
5,16,12,655
Total Additions
25,80,001
20,75,343
14,00,601
13,81,575
Total Deletions
28,35,726
11,98,568
2,00,719
6,31,555
Net Addition
-2,55,725
8,76,775
11,99,882
7,50,020
Percentage of Net Addition
-0.5
1.83
2.38
1.45

Source: Election Commission of India

This nefarious design is being organized by Trinamool Congress to subvert the election process. These are gross attempts to bypass the well-established EC stipulations for addition of names. The submission of affidavits, patently false methods of certification like school certificates, birth certificates from health centres etc instead of standard procedures indicate an organized effort to falsify the rolls. In fact, in many cases, bulk of affidavits or certificates came from the same source. Chief Electoral Officer of the state has clearly issued a direction in an all-party meeting on August 5, 2010 that “submission of bulk applications as well as affidavits and other documents inconsistent with the norms and rules of the Election Commission shall not be accepted or rejected if received anywhere, prior to enquiry.”

Left leaders in their memorandum to Chief Election Commissioner have alleged that the commitment so given was not being strictly implemented. There have been instances of questionable role of certain observers to bring pressure on the block level election officials to turn a blind eye to these obnoxious attempts and legitimize the applications without due consideration as per the directions of the Election Commission.

Courtesy: www.cpimwb.org.in