Won’t allow Assembly polls if SIR is obstructed in WB, says State BJP president

Accusing the Trinamool Congress of obstructing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on Tuesday said the BJP would not allow the Assembly elections if the revision of electoral rolls is not held properly.

Mr. Bhattacharya pointed out that BJP workers had carried out thorough booth-level scrutiny to identify residents and non-residents to ascertain the accuracy of the published rolls, but Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and their deputies (AEROs) were refusing to accept their objections raised through the EC’s Form 7 in different parts of the State.

“If the SIR process ends in West Bengal in this manner, we will not allow elections to take place here. Make the SIR process smooth - this is our demand to the Election Commission (EC),” the state BJP president said.

The BJP leader said that party workers had held protests at various places in the State after the officials refused to accept the objection forms by the party.

“Till now, the ruling party has opposed SIR. How can the BLOs say they will not accept Form 7 and to fill up Form 6 online? It is the responsibility of the Election Commission to hold SIR in a free and fair process,” he said.

Mr. Bhattacharya said that the party had repeatedly urged Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to visit West Bengal to assess the ground situation. He argued that when the process of SIR had started there were threats on the BLOs (Booth Level Officers) and now when the process is held under ECI how can BLOs refuse to accept forms.

Before the start of SIR, the BJP leadership, including Samik Bhattacharya, had said that they would not allow Assembly polls if the process is not held in the State. About 58 lakh names have been deleted during the first phase of SI,R and in the second phase of the exercise the ECI is looking at about 1.26 crore logical discrepancies.

Trinamool Congress leadership including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has opposed SIR and Ms. Banerjee had written five letters to CEC Gyanesh Kumar raising objections to various issues relating to SIR.