Kolkata: Election Commission had lost control over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of poll rolls in Bengal, with the Supreme Court now dictating the terms, Trinamool said on Tuesday hours after the apex court’s order.Describing the SC order as yet another resounding victory for Bengal’s ‘Maa-Mati-Manush’, TMC posted on X: “The EC’s arrogant stranglehold on Bengal’s SIR process has been decisively snapped.”
TMC MP Mahua Moitra said: “The SC has effectively taken over the SIR process from the EC and given it to the judiciary. The Calcutta High Court is essentially monitoring the process. The disgraced and discredited EC, which was only looking for ways to disenfranchise voters, was dealt a big blow.”Voters mapped to the 2002 SIR were made to stand in hearing queues because some micro-observers — who are themselves illegal appointees — objected to their names in the rolls, Moitra added.“These 50-60 lakh odd voters were harassed for no fault of theirs. The SC has given them a chance. We’ll ensure that all genuine voters are back in the voter rolls, either on the Feb 28 list or the supplementary list,” she said.MP Sagarika Ghose also hit out at the EC on similar lines. “The Supreme Court ensured that the entire SIR process was taken out of the discretion and supervision of the Election Commission of India.”Ghose added: “They (judicial officers) will now take over the adjudication of the 50 lakh names that remain undecided. Furthermore, the court held that documents such as Aadhaar card and Madhyamik examination admit card will be permitted as proof of identity. This is yet another slap on EC’s face. It is extremely compromised.”TMC said CM Mamata Banerjee “demanded and fought tooth and nail” to safeguard people’s right to cast vote, and “the SC has now taken the reins, stripping the ECI of its unchecked discretion”.“The EC is so discredited, so incompetent that the Supreme Court is forced to import judges from other states. And the final, searing slap is that the SC upheld that all documents listed in the EC’s Oct 24 notification, and those subsequently cleared by the SC, including Aadhaar and Madhyamik admits, must be accepted as valid proof. No more arbitrary rejection games,” it said.“No more selective humiliation of Bengal’s voters. The ECI’s desperate bid to rig the rolls by changing documentary standards mid-game was crushed under judicial boots,” it said.
