Participating in a discussion on ‘Election Reforms’ in the Lok Sabha, Banerjee asked, “Why should an elector, whose name was there in 2024 (voter list), be told that he is not an elector because his name was not there in 2002?”
Deletion of voters, he said, would undermine the democratic process.
“What is the point of an election if you delete voters,” the Trinamool MP questioned, adding, “Now, Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi decides through the Election Commission (EC) who will be a voter.”
Insisting that “nobody is above the law”, Banerjee said the Supreme Court would have the final word on the legality of the EC’s actions.
Banerjee also criticised the poll authority’s approach on delimitation and the use of digital applications to verify family relationships in voter lists.
He argued that the law does not define ‘relative’ in the rigid manner being applied.”Unless parents’ names are there, they will not be treated as relatives. Will an app decide who will be my relative? My brother is not my relative, my wife is not my relative?” he asked, calling the exercise arbitrary.
The purpose of the system should be inclusion, but “SIR is only meant to delete electors”, the four-time MP from Serampore in West Bengal said.
Banerjee also claimed that excessive workload given to the BLOs in West Bengal led to a series of tragedies.
“In West Bengal, 20 persons committed suicide, five fell critically ill, 19 persons expired and three attempted suicide,” Banerjee claimed, asking, “Who will be responsible? The Election Commission?”
He added that these incidents were not confined to Bengal alone, and pointed to similar cases in other states.
Citing figures, he said Uttar Pradesh reported 10 such cases, Madhya Pradesh nine, Gujarat six, and Rajasthan three. Kerala had one case and Tamil Nadu two, Banerjee said, arguing that the problem spanned both BJP and non-BJP states.
“Three are non-BJP and five are BJP states,” he said, adding that while the BJP MPs did not visit the affected families, “we had gone”.