GUWAHATI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has petitioned Assam’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), alleging that the District Commissioner (DC) of Bajali issued a verbal order to conduct a “survey” or verification of voters in 115 polling booths dominated by voters from the Muslim community.
In a letter, Suprakash Talukdar, secretary of the party’s Assam State Committee, drew the CEO’s attention to what he described as a “serious alleged violation” of the Special Revision (SR) process of electoral rolls in the district.
Talukdar stated that the DC of Bajali convened a meeting with officials associated with the electoral process following the publication of the draft electoral roll on December 27 last year. He further claimed that Cabinet Minister Ranjeet Kumar Dass also attended the meeting, which was attended by government employees, mostly schoolteachers.
“It is learnt that during this meeting, the District Commissioner verbally directed these government servants to conduct a survey or verification of voters in 115 polling booths dominated by voters belonging to the Muslim community,” Talukdar said.
According to him, no formal written order or official communication was issued by the DC authorising such a survey or verification in those booths.
“What is extremely objectionable and unacceptable is that these instructions were specifically issued for polling booths where the officially appointed Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are Muslims,” the CPI(M) leader said.
He alleged that since these polling booths already have duly appointed BLOs under the existing rules and procedures of the Election Commission of India, directing other government servants to carry out voter verification by bypassing the BLOs amounted to a gross violation of the prescribed SR procedure.
“Further, when the government servants sought written orders to this effect, their request was reportedly refused. We have reasons to believe that such violations might take place in other districts too if not intervened in time,” he said.
The CPI(M) has requested the CEO to conduct a thorough enquiry into the conduct of the DC and other officials concerned, and to take stringent action if the allegations are found to be true, in order to “uphold the credibility, impartiality and constitutional mandate of the Election Commission of India, and to ensure that the SR process is conducted in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory manner.”