IS THERE NOT EVEN ONE BJP SUPPORTER AMONG THE 65 LAKH DELETED VOTERS? DIPANKAR BHATTACHARYA

IS THERE NOT EVEN ONE BJP SUPPORTER AMONG THE 65 LAKH DELETED VOTERS? DIPANKAR BHATTACHARYA

25-AUG-ENG 6

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

PATNA------------------------CPI-ML General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya today issued an important press statement and raised serious questions on BJP and Election Commission. He said that 65 lakh voters have been excluded in the SIR process in Bihar. The question arises that is there not even one BJP supporter among them?

He said that the maximum number of BLAs in Bihar are from BJP, and it is said that they are quite active too. Then how is it possible that till now they have not lodged even a single objection? Why are BJP and JDU silent on this?

Dipankar alleged that on August 22, in the Supreme Court, the Election Commission tried to put its responsibility on the political parties by giving a wrong argument. The Commission said that all the political parties together have about 1.5 lakh BLAs - then what are they doing? Whereas the truth is that preparing the voter list correctly is the constitutional responsibility of the Election Commission, not of the political parties. Political parties and civil society can only be allies.

He further said that why has BJP's BLA not lodged a single objection till now? Is there any internal nexus between Election Commission and BJP? Why did they not raise any questions?

The process of the Commission is very complex, opaque and incomprehensible to the general public. It is very difficult to register a complaint in this process.

He also said that the Election Commission is stating the number of CPI(ML)'s BLAs as 1500, whereas on the dashboard of the Chief Electoral Officer, Bihar, this number is 2500. Out of these, about 1000 BLAs are still pending. Two months are about to complete the SIR process, but the Commission has not been able to recognize these BLAs yet. Our work is not being done properly, on the contrary, questions are being raised on us.

He clarified that when the Commission will not recognize the BLAs, will not provide a copy of the affidavit, and will not explain the process in a transparent manner - then how will objections be registered?

He also said that according to the current rule, a BLA can register objections of only 10 and maximum 30 voters in a day. In such a situation, what will happen to the booths where there are more than 30 discrepancies? This clearly indicates that the Election Commission's intention is to exclude voters from the list.

Dipankar said that now the people of Bihar have understood everything. This time vote theft will not be allowed. Voter Rights Yatra is getting tremendous support from the public. Anger against SIR and a strong desire for change against the 20 years of failures of NDA is visible.