Hollywood News
Mamata Banerjee moves Supreme Court against voter roll revision in Bengal
New Delhi: Mamata Banerjee has petitioned the Supreme Court against the Election Commission of India’s move to carry out a special, massive revision of the voter rolls in the state.Banerjee maintained that the ongoing SIR would lead to disenfranchisement of thousands of voters and disrupt level playing field for parties in elections. He asked the court to direct the elections to be held according to the schedules prepared last year.
“The entire SIR exercise is an effort to disenfranchise existing voters on the electoral roll by forcing them to prove their citizenship with ‘documentary’ evidence against an arbitrary deadline of 2002. This violates the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and 1951,” he said in his defence.
He also alleged that the SIR was launched in extreme haste in less than 90 days, just before this year’s general elections. He highlighted various practical problems and gaps in the ongoing process. In his defense, he argues that allowing the same situation to continue will inevitably result in the mass exclusion of voters, especially poor immigrants who regularly move out of state as seasonal workers.
“The entire SIR exercise is an effort to disenfranchise existing voters on the electoral roll by forcing them to prove their citizenship with ‘documentary’ evidence against an arbitrary deadline of 2002. This violates the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and 1951,” he said in his defence.
He also alleged that the SIR was launched in extreme haste in less than 90 days, just before this year’s general elections. He highlighted various practical problems and gaps in the ongoing process. In his defense, he argues that allowing the same situation to continue will inevitably result in the mass exclusion of voters, especially poor immigrants who regularly move out of state as seasonal workers.
“ECI has turned the entire SIR exercise into a battleground for voters struggling with arbitrary rejection of documents, unreasonable hearings, inconsistent instructions, opaque rules, shifting stands and complete chaos caused by untested algorithms and software used by ECI,” the plea adds.
