New Delhi, Jul 19 (PTI) The special intensive revision exercise in Bihar is a “total scam”, the CPI(ML) Liberation alleged on Saturday and announced that it will launch protests in August after the draft electoral rolls are published.
At a press conference, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya cited the demolitions in Delhi and other states, “crackdown” on Bengali-speaking migrants, and also evictions in Assam to accuse the BJP of targeting those who are primarily voters of opposition parties. He said the CPI(ML) would launch a campaign in August with the slogan “Chunav Chor, Gaddi Chhod”. He also said the party is launching helplines in several states to help migrant workers from Bihar for filing online applications under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). “SIR is a total scam, just like electoral bonds,” Bhattacharya alleged. “We will meet the Election Commission on July 22, and tell them the kind of scam which is going on in the name of SIR and the kind of hardship that the people are being subjected to,” he said. He also questioned the claim of Bangladeshis and Rohingyas being found in Bihar during the ongoing SIR, and the reports on the numbers of voters likely to be deleted from the roll.
“When the forms being submitted are yet to be processed and the scrutiny is yet to begin, how can the election commission put out figures of deaths and how many people have permanently relocated themselves or how many duplications have been sorted out,” he questioned. The EC on Friday said it is sharing lists of around 41 lakh Bihar electors who have probably died or have permanently shifted and have enrolled at multiple places with political parties and their booth-level agents to ascertain the exact status of such persons before July 25.
Bhattacharya said in August, when the draft electoral roll will be published, more protests will be held. “August is the month of independence, the month of Quit India movement, so for the people of Bihar the slogan is, ‘Chunav Chor, Gaddi Chhod’, against this disenfranchisement and the stealing of election. People have already started speaking and August will be full of vigorous mass actions,” he said. CPI(ML) MP from Arrah Sudama Prasad, who was part of a fact-finding team that visited Ashudubi village in Assam’s Goalpara where evictions have been taking place, claimed schools, medicine shops, Anganwadi centres were also destroyed.
He said the locals are now living under “polythene” tents. “BJP is losing its base among the people, it wants to rule through bulldozers and by removing people’s names from voters list…” Prasad alleged. Karakat MP Raja Ram Singh, meanwhile, said the issues will be raised in Parliament. “We have already submitted questions. Along with other opposition parties, we will raise these issues in Parliament,” he said. RP Singh, a migrant from Bihar whose house was among those demolished in Delhi’s Wazirpur, meanwhile said he was a voter in Bihar, and the demolition of his house here has further aggravated his worries. “Our houses were next to the railway line… We are now living in tents, and every day, authorities tell us to leave the place. But where do we go?” he said. “My house here has been demolished, if my name is removed from the voters list in Bihar, where do I belong?” he added. PTI AO ZMN
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