Kolkata, Nov. 10 -- West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday dubbed the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as "votebandi", and urged the Election Commission to immediately stop the exercise.
Blaming the Centre for "holding back state government employees for months on end in the name of conducting SIR", Banerjee accused the Union government of creating a "super emergency" like situation.
"The state employees are being held back till February next year when the final rolls will be published. After that the elections will be announced. When will the state government work? It's a deliberate ploy to keep the government out of action for three months. This is like a super emergency implemented in the garb of SIR," Banerjee claimed.
She was briefing reporters at 'Uttarkanya' in Siliguri, the state secretariat in north Bengal, after holding an administrative meeting.
"Just like demonetisation was 'notebandi', SIR is 'votebandi'. The BJP-led central government is harassing people in the name of SIR," the CM alleged.
Banerjee lashed out at the Election Commission for allegedly rushing the SIR exercise and causing people "distress".
"I do not understand the hurry in conducting SIR just before elections. This is insulting to the people of Bengal. I firmly stand by my earlier stance that the EC must immediately stop this exercise. The revision cannot be completed in two or three months. It is being carried out forcibly. I have heard of houses with eight voters where only two forms were distributed and the other six missing," she said.
"(Now) You must prove yourself; you must know who you are. What greater humiliation could there be? They could have done this (SIR) over two years. What right does the EC have in determining who is a citizen and who isn't?" Banerjee asked.
Referring to the days when the EC was headed by T N Seshan, she insisted that it wouldn't be as easy for the poll panel to conduct the exercise in Bengal as it was for them in Bihar.
"I remember when Mr Seshan was election commissioner, he said the EC is for the people, not the government. I am sorry to see its current leaders only yapping 'yes sir' and 'yes sir'. You could do this (SIR) in Bihar because you could get away with it, but not in Bengal, where we will question you at every step. You only want to satisfy your boss, not the public. You cannot demolish democracy," Banerjee said, in an oblique reference to Gyanesh Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner.
"It is not easy to play with us. We assess the pitch before playing. We will catch them at every step and ensure every genuine voter can vote. The EC will not follow the BJP's directions. If they want to punish me for saying this, they can. What will you do? Send me to jail, send agencies after me, strip my voting rights, even threaten my life, but do not torture the people," she asserted.
The chief minister targeted the Union government over the issue of infiltration, questioning why Union Home Minister Amit Shah should not take responsibility when border security lies with the BSF, a central agency.
"If the BSF is responsible for guarding the borders, why should you (Amit Shah) not be held accountable for infiltration? As a home minister, you must resign first. You have been in the chair for more than 10 years. You cannot keep on lying and mislead people," Banerjee claimed.
She also demanded that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) be revoked, stating that it was a "blunder" to support it.
"Amit Mitra (former state finance minister) convinced me earlier and I conceded, but I now realise that was a mistake. Today, many transactions are taxed and the Centre is using money collected from states for wasteful expenditure, diverting funds to other states. They travel abroad and return wearing gold garlands. The central government's main role should be restricted to defence and borders; most other matters are state prerogatives," she maintained.
"The Centre has been advertising that it made insurance tax-free; that is false. They take our money and then call it generosity. They collect large sums as GST and then claim credit for benefits; this is misleading. That money came from our coffers, it is not their achievement," Banerjee added.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.