Suri (WB), March 15 Criticizing the Election Commission for unilaterally declaring the election schedule in West Bengal without publishing the supplementary list of cleared voters under the adjudication by judicial officers, the CPI (M) on Sunday questioned the curtailing of the rights of those who are currently under the commission's scanner to contest the polls.
Addressing reporters in the district headquarters town of Birbhum, the party's West Bengal secretary Md Salim alleged that lakhs of voters in the state were illegally kept suspended on grounds of possible illegitimacy of appearance in electoral rolls to "fulfill political aspirations of the BJP and TMC".
"The Constitution guarantees rights to citizens of this country to contest elections. With over 60 lakh people still under the commission's doubtful voter list, they will lose the opportunity to submit candidature, even if they appear in the supplementary list published later. The nomination form mandates them to state their voter details in terms of their part and serial number in electoral rolls, which they cannot," Salim argued.
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday announced the two-phased assembly elections in Bengal on April 23 and 29, with a deadline for filing of nominations on April 7 and 10, respectively.
"How can you expect the poll body to hold free and fair elections when it cannot produce an error-free electoral roll?" Salim said, pointing at the "grey areas left in terms of voters' participation".
The party apparatchik maintained that both the state and the central administration have failed to uphold the rights of legitimate voters and alleged that the EC "created this impasse to fulfill the wishes of RSS and BJP".
"We will keep fighting to re-establish participatory democracy and the fundamental rights of citizens. We will not allow divisive politics to take hold in Bengal and will continue our struggle to expand the franchise of citizens as against the conspiracy to shrink their numbers," Salim said.
He said his party has held discussions with its lawyers bodies and has decided to set up legal aid cells to stand beside voters who have found themselves at the receiving end of the SIR exercise. "We will fight for them at the tribunals, lower courts, the high court and, if required, at the Supreme Court," he said.