Shikha Mukerjee | ‘Supplementary’ SIR Row; LPG Pressure Amidst War

Supplementary lists are like supplementary tests; a clumsily crafted device to make up for a botched first attempt. West Bengal’s seriously stressed electorate will vote to elect a new government and deliver judgment on the Election Commission’s competence because it has put over 60 lakh voters through a supplementary ordeal. Supplementary lists create hierarchies, separating the winners from those who don’t make the first cut.

Among voters, there is no subtle difference between those who were on the first list and those on supplementary lists, because these lists were created to overcome the failures of the EC over getting the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls done on time. That puts the BJP in a fix; it is the only political outfit that has consistently defended the indefensibly complicated and harrowing SIR process.

The Iran-Israel-United States conflict has inflicted additional pain on a population that has been wrung out by the exhausting process of the EC’s SIR, with its layers of verification, errors and corrections. People find themselves juggling with problems like LPG supplies, rising costs, fragile livelihoods, depressed economic opportunities and all-embracing uncertainty, gloom and hardships.

The least subjective method of assessing the multiple stress factors is the number of rallies held on a multitude of issues held by political parties in West Bengal in the past three months. Drawing up a comprehensive list is difficult; organisers confirm they have not been this busy in a long time, and with election season underway, the going will get tougher. The CPI(M), Congress and Trinamul Congress have hit the streets, mobilising people, indicating a surge in participation as a mode of protest.

Samik Lahiri, former MP and now editor of the CPI(M)'s Bengali daily, Ganashakti, listed a minimum of 10 separate issues for which the party mobilised on the streets, not including the SIR and the 1,000-km Bangla Bachao yatra. The issues ranged from the calls for a ceasefire against undeclared genocide of women, children and people in Gaza, to peasant mobilisations against the Narendra Modi government’s policies, to participation in the all-India strike over the new labour codes, against the West Bengal government’s education policies, also against the Modi government’s changes to the UGC’s Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations that were discriminatory, to rallies against the SIR process. “For a year now, we have been organising rallies and small meetings; the party held 70,000 group discussions across the state,” to tell people and listen to their grievances.

All political parties in West Bengal have been seriously invested in the SIR process, holding camps to fill out verification forms and accompanying nervous voters to hearings. The BJP has, in addition, held camps in seven districts bordering Bangladesh for people to fill up applications under the Citizenship Amendment Act.

Hiking the price of LPG cylinders, domestic and commercial, has affected not just domestic consumers, but the roadside eateries that meet the demand for low-cost food to daily wage workers, especially gig workers on punishing schedules. Some have switched to coal and some have added other fuel-burning stoves to save on LPG. Many have cut down on the quantities and variety of cooked items they serve.

The pent-up frustrations and increasing discontent with the Modi government on one hand and with Mamata Banerjee is reflected in the increased participation of people in Opposition party rallies and meetings.

The build-up of pressures has been relentless. The SIR process is a pressure point that has riled the largest number of people, because every family in West Bengal has had to prove that one or more family members are eligible voters.

The multi-layer filtration of voters has 60 lakh people waiting for the first cut by judicial officers appointed by the Calcutta High Court, including judicial officers from Jharkhand and Odisha, is yet to be concluded. After waiting for three weeks, about 46 per cent of voters listed as “under adjudication” will know if they have been verified as “eligible”. If they are not eligible, then those who have the stomach and the money to pursue it will have to file cases in the newly constituted tribunals to resolve their identities.

Assurances that the process of adjudication is likely to be completed before April means nothing for a voter who has to go to a tribunal to sort out the mess of the Election Commission’s making. The BJP, Congress and CPI(M) have accused the Trinamul Congress of creating a fear psychosis.

The CPI(M) has charged Mamata Banerjee with failing to live up to her promise to block SIR from West Bengal.

On the ground, there is widespread dismay, as people have been compelled to make time to deal with the extra pressures that have piled up in recent weeks. People also have to shell out more from already tight budgets due to the increase in the price of LPG and its cascading effects. The verdict in one state, or even four states and one Union territory, will not be a mini referendum; the preferences of voters in the election-bound states will deliver outcomes that are decisions on incumbency. In all the states, ruling parties, three from the Opposition and one from the BJP, will be assessed on their performances.

There will be, nevertheless, a subtext to the verdict: in all the states (Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) and the Union territory of Puducherry, the Election Commission and its role as the manager of the election and the SIR process will be assessed. Having assumed the role of an adversary against undetected illegal infiltrators masquerading as eligible voters, the EC has to prove that its exercise in purification by weeding out “ghuspaithiyas” in Assam and West Bengal, in particular, has been an entirely successful enterprise. The success of the enterprise will depend on how smoothly the actual polling is accomplished in West Bengal, where the supplementary list of voters adjudicated as eligible or ineligible is a continuing process.

No election that is held without a complete voters’ list that is satisfactory to all voters, deleted or included, is a failed exercise. It is all very well for Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to say that he will hold “free, fair, peaceful elections” without violence and with extraordinary bandobast to eliminate all unsavoury activities by political players intent on subverting the democratic process, but the final stamp of approval has to come from voters. If even one adult, who was debarred from voting, is found to be eligible by the judiciary after the voting is over, the EC has to take responsibility for its failure.