KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the Election Commission of India (ECI) and West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal.
The move comes ahead of a 15-member Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation led by Mamata meeting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar at Nirvachan Sadan in Delhi on Monday to protest against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.
The legal move has further escalated the standoff between the ECI and the TMC government over the SIR exercise, at a time when the poll body is expected to announce the dates for the Assembly elections by the end of February.
On Saturday, Mamata wrote her sixth letter to the CEC raising her objections against the methodology and approach adopted during the exercise in the state.
She further alleged that the SIR drive has already claimed 140 lives, including common citizens and Booth Level Officers (BLOs), due to panic and anxiety over the possible deletion of names from the electoral rolls, as well as the heavy workload faced by BLOs.
Sources said the petition filed by Mamata is likely to be heard by the apex court this week.
A related case on the SIR in the state is scheduled for hearing on Wednesday. The petition was filed by some TMC MPs.
“I am again constrained to write to you regarding the methodology and approach, beyond the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and the Rules framed thereunder, being followed in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in West Bengal,” Mamata had written in her earlier letter.
In previous letters to the CEC, Mamata flagged several issues that, she said, had caused “immense inconvenience and agony to the people”, resulting in “as many as 140 deaths” during the exercise. She also alleged that the process was imposed in “blatant violation” of the Act and Rules in force, in “total disregard of human rights and basic humanitarian considerations”.
She also criticised the appointment of micro-observers for the exercise in the state.
She alleged that, for the first time in the country’s electoral process, the Commission has appointed 8,100 micro-observers in the state without proper training, and that they lack the skills required for such a sensitive exercise.
She claimed that there is no mention of such micro-observers in the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and the Rules of the country.
On January 12, Mamata wrote her fifth letter to the CEC, and earlier, on January 3, the CM had written to the CEC, urging him to “halt” the “unplanned, arbitrary and ad hoc exercise” immediately.
She had also alleged in the letter that the Commission’s objective “seems neither of correction nor of inclusion in the electoral rolls, but solely of deletion and of exclusion.”
The CM had also urged the CEC to minimise the harassment, inconvenience and agony of the “common citizen of the state” who are being served notices by the Commission to appear at the hearing centres.