Election Commission to meet TMC delegation on November 28 amid SIR row

Amid the raging controversy over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls which is going on in nine states, including West Bengal and three Union Territories, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday granted appointment to a delegation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) for a meeting on November 28 (Friday) at 11 am.

The appointment was granted by the ECI after the party's Rajya Sabha MP and leader of the Parliamentary party Derek O'Brien had requested for time through a letter dated November 23.

The appointment has been given at a time when TMC head and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written two letters to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in the past five days, first urging him to halt the SIR and then in the second letter, casting aspersions over the appointment of private data entry operators and setting up polling stations in private housing complexes.

The CEC is yet to respond to any of the letters by Banerjee.

The Chief Minister in her second letter to the CEC dated November 24, had said that while the timing and manner of the request for proposal to engage around 1,000 data entry operators “certainly raise legitimate doubts”, the decision to set up polling stations in private housing complexes would have a “severe impact on the fairness of the electoral process”.

“I urge you to examine these issues with utmost seriousness, impartiality and transparency. It is essential that the dignity, neutrality and credibility of the commission remain above reproach and are not compromised under any circumstances,” she wrote further.

Banerjee in her latest letter to the CEC stated that the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the state had directed district election officers (DEOs) not to engage contractual data entry operators and Bangla Sahayata Kendra (BSK) staff for SIR-related or other election-related data work. Instead, a request for proposal has been floated to hire 1,000 data entry operators and 50 software developers for one year.

“Is this exercise being undertaken at the behest of a political party to serve vested interests?” she asked in her letter.

Also, the poll panel is considering setting up polling stations within private residential complexes and the DEOs have been asked to provide recommendations.

“Why is such a move being contemplated at all? Again, is this being done under the pressure from a political party to advance their partisan interests? Why? Why? Why?,” she wrote.

This was the second letter by Banerjee to Kumar, as on November 20, she had written to him, requesting that the SIR taking place in nine states (including West Bengal) and three union territories, be halted.

She had claimed that the exercise was "chaotic, coercive and dangerous".

Banerjee mentioned in the first letter that she has "time and again" raised concerns over the ongoing SIR of the electoral rolls in the state and is now "compelled to write" to the chief election commissioner because the situation has reached a "deeply alarming stage".

She alleged that the SIR in West Bengal is being carried out in an unplanned, dangerous manner that has crippled the process from day one.

The Chief Minister had also flagged the issue of BLOs committing suicides allegedly due to stress related to the SIR work, in the letter to Kumar.

When asked about the concern raised by her, Election Commission of India (ECI) sources indicated that the poll panel is fully cognizant of the matter and Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of states are looking into each individual case.

Several BLOs across Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, West Bengal and even Kerala have died in the past weeks by suicide, with quite a few of them and their families blaming the deaths to the stress caused by the SIR-related work.