Kolkata, March 3 CPI(M) West Bengal state secretary Mohammed Salim said that the Left parties will organize a march to the office of the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) on Wednesday, demanding the publication of an accurate voter list before the upcoming assembly elections.
Citing widespread harassment of people due to the exercise, he claimed on Tuesday that the "Election Commission" has become a "Torture Commission".
The ECI published the post-SIR rolls on February 28, recording 63.66 lakh deletions, which is 8.3 per cent of the electorate, reducing the voter base to just over 7.04 crore ahead of the assembly polls. More than 60.06 lakh electors have also been placed in the "under adjudication" category, subject to scrutiny in the coming weeks.
"In the name of intensive revision of the voter list, a concerted conspiracy has taken place," Salim said, addressing a press conference at the CPI(M) office in Purba Bardhaman district.
The CPI(M) leader stated that the constituents of the Left Front will hold a march to the CEO's office in Kolkata on Wednesday, demanding that the ECI publish an accurate voter list before the assembly elections in West Bengal.
He claimed that the ECI, the authority responsible for ensuring free and fair elections, has made the SIR process complex and has caused tension among a large number of people.
Salim maintained that there was no need for the SIR, while demanding that the ECI ensure that the names of genuine voters are not deleted from the electoral rolls.
Alleging harassment of people in the name of logical discrepancies in the SIR process in West Bengal, he stated that this could have largely been avoided if the state government had standardized name spellings by passing a resolution in the assembly.
The CPI(M) leader claimed that important issues affecting the general public, such as education and healthcare, etc., have been pushed to the back burner by both the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) through shadow boxing over religious issues.