KOLKATA: On a day the Election Commission is scheduled to publish the second supplementary list of voters in connection with the SIR exercise in West Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee lashed out at the poll panel and the BJP for "not putting out in the public domain the full and final first supplementary list".
Calling the non-availability of the list a "murder of democracy", Banerjee warned that "people will soon seek answers to such arbitrary exercise of power".
"God's own mill grinds slow, but grinds sure. I say this on the day of Ram Navami," the chief minister told reporters at the Kolkata airport on Friday, implying people's retribution against the roll cleaning exercise.
The first supplementary list of 'under adjudication' names was published online on March 23 without officially stating the number of deletions and inclusions.
Top sources in the poll body have, however, claimed that some 40 per cent of the 32 lakh voters scrutinised by judicial officers so far were removed from the rolls.
Converted into real figures, it means around 13 lakh additional voters were deleted in the supplementary list, taking the total deletion figure to around 76 lakh and counting.
Considering that the SIR exercise began with over 7.6 crore voters in Bengal, about 10 per cent of voters have already been deleted, bringing that number to around 6.8 crore at the present stage.
"What's happening now will surpass (the doings of) super Hitlers. The entire exercise has become a vanishing washing machine of the BJP. They are vanishing democracy and people's rights. I feel hatred and for them and am ashamed. They have retained one member and removed four others from the same family. They deleted lakhs of names belonging to a particular community. Does BJP consider itself 'zamindars' of this country?" Banerjee said.
Referring to the Supreme Court order on supplementary rolls, Banerjee "dared" the commission to publish the first supplementary list in full.
"We are yet to receive the first supplementary list.
It is not there in public domain still.
There can be no greater murder of democracy than this.
When were the rolls supposed to be published? When did the Supreme Court pass judgment? The last list was published on February 28.
Then the adjudications began and I have heard that they deleted nearly 50 per cent voters from that list," she said.
The chief minister alleged that people were picked and chosen for deletion.
"I heard that in one of the blocks in Suti (in Murshidabad district), names of some 400 out of the 500 people in a particular booth were deleted.
There are many such examples.
In a block in Basirhat, 400 out of 600 voters in a booth were removed," she claimed.
"Who did these things? People will ask for answers in future.
Let people know who is included in the rolls and who isn't.
Allow those who are omitted to approach the tribunals in their respective districts and get themselves enrolled.
We will support them by providing free of cost lawyers.
But no one has the right to take away democratic rights of citizens," she added.
Accusing the poll body of "wanting to hold elections by taking away people's voting rights," Banerjee questioned whether the BJP was "running a washing machine by putting a Vanish Kumar as its front".