Following a prolonged period of high tension, the results of West Bengal’s 18th Legislative Assembly election were announced on May 4. We all are aware that, in a record-breaking turnout, 93% of the electorate cast their votes to entrust the BJP with the governance of West Bengal for the next five years, and the new government commenced its tenure after taking the oath of office on May 9. In this brief span of just a month and a half, the newly formed BJP government has starkly revealed—here, as elsewhere across the country—its anti-poor and anti-working-class nature. Bulldozers have been unleashed upon small traders, shopkeepers, and street hawkers. Showcasing scenes of near-medieval barbarity and trampling upon all human rights, the police have taken it upon themselves to parade corrupt Trinamool leaders through the area with ropes tied around their waists, solely to stage a spectacle for filming videos of people pelting them with eggs. Alongside this, a wave of cultural aggression has gained rapid momentum. A series of staged events continues to play out on the stage of Bengal: various restrictions on cow slaughter during Eid-ul-Adha, objections raised against the sound of prayers from mosques, the obstruction of prayers on Red Road to make way for a seven-day Yoga session led by Modi at the same venue, and the forced projection of Syama Prasad as a Bengali icon accompanied by the relentless propagation of countless lies about him. Consequently, the many poor and working-class people who voted for the BJP have already begun to wonder whether their decision was the right one. At the same time, darkness has permanently settled over the lives of those people who did not even get the opportunity to vote in this election. For the first time, millions of citizens—who are alive, healthy, have voted multiple times in the past, and were present at their registered addresses—were unable to exercise their constitutional right to vote, owing to a joint enforcement by the Election Commission of India and the apex court having the responsibility of upholding the Constitution. We all are aware that—much like the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya or Article 370 in Kashmir—a key narrative constructed by the BJP regarding the Bengal and Assam regions of Eastern India over the past few decades centers on the massive influx of millions of Bangladeshi infiltrators, the resulting demographic shift in the area, and the claim that all non-BJP governments in West Bengal since independence have survived solely on the strength of votes cast by these bogus voters. Almost to legitimize this theory, the National Election Commission descended upon the people of Bengal last October armed with a form-bomb known as ‘SIR,’ accompanied by the deceit of constantly shifting goalposts regarding the criteria. Consequently, for months on end, millions of Bengali citizens ran frantically from pillar to post, squandering their hard-earned money in a desperate attempt to procure a host of obscure and unnecessary documents. Yet, even that did not save the situation in the end. Initially, a staggering list of ‘suspects’ (the so-called Logical Discrepancies)—containing the names of nearly 10 million people—was published; following a ‘hearing’ process, 550,000 names were immediately struck off. Subsequently, acting on the court’s advice, citing the inabilities of the State Government and the ECI, another 6 million people found their status ‘under adjudication’ within their own country, and ultimately, more than 2.7 million of them were stripped of their voting rights for this election. The Honorable Supreme Court merely remarked, “Would the heavens fall if one couldn’t vote in a single election?” and advised the 2.7 million affected individuals to appeal to a tribunal headed by former Calcutta High Court judges, while instructing the 550,000 whose names had been deleted to submit Form-6 to get re-enrolled. However, despite commencing operations in mid-April, the tribunal managed to restore the voting rights of only 1,607 people—including one MLA candidate—before the election. However, this certainly proves that among the applicants, there remained countless citizens with a genuine right to vote who were prevented from exercising their constitutional right due to ‘constitutional’ hurdles erected before them by the constitutional bodies, during this ‘historic’ election.
The problem is that this farce did not end there. The nineteen tribunals—announced with great fanfare and tasked with reviewing and deciding upon approximately 2.5 million applications—continued to function at a snail’s pace in the post-election period. Consequently, in more than three weeks’ time following April 29, only 6,581 applications were processed; of these, 4,043 (61%) were accepted, while it was revealed that many of the remaining 2,538 applications had already been accepted previously. Simple arithmetic suggests that if applications continue to be processed at this pace, it could take approximately 1,140 weeks—or 22 years—to process the 2.5 million applications, extending the timeline to the year 2048. It implies that there may very well be many who will not once, but will get to have the voting ink applied to their fingers once again in the ‘Amrit Bharat’—shining in 2048—provided, of course, that both they and the country’s parliamentary democracy are still alive by then. The only saving grace in this situation is that, despite the empty bluster of political leaders, guidelines regarding the ration system or the Annapurna Yojana stipulate that every individual who has appealed to the tribunal retains the right to access benefits from all government schemes until their case is resolved; in other words, these millions of people are not going to be deprived of their civic rights—at least not for the time being. However, we must not forget that the BJP and RSS are adept at spreading misinformation to strip people of their rights—particularly in unleashing oppression against minorities and relegating them to the status of second-class citizens—and consequently, we must persist in the struggle to safeguard people’s interests.
Yet, it has already become evident that the script for the BJP’s ‘infiltrator’ narrative has likely reached its conclusion here, as there will be no further opportunity to raise this issue after this round; moreover, everyone now understands that one cannot simply use the rhetoric of election rallies to ‘bulldoze’ living human beings across the border into a neighboring country, for international law does not sanction such actions. News reports appear daily about helpless citizens attempting to cross the border by force, only to be thwarted by the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and subsequently forced the BSF to accept them back to their own country on ‘humanitarian’ grounds. Ultimately, this charade will likely end with the repatriation of only a few thousands of citizens of the neighboring country—who crossed the border for various reasons—to their homeland, and so another political issue for the RSS will die out, just as happened with the Ram Mandir or Article 370, even though they continue to propagate fear-mongering lies for their own vested interests. However, a persistent issue remains: the conspiracy to disenfranchise millions of voters—predominantly minorities and women—over many years. Consequently, it is our duty to put an end to this unconstitutional oppression and strive for the speedy resolution of all applications currently pending before the tribunals. This convention is therefore being convened to press for the following demands—
1) The number of tribunals must be increased manifold immediately; 2) applications must be disposed of regularly and expeditiously; 3) tribunal offices must be opened in every district, and every applicant must be granted an opportunity for an in-person hearing before their application is rejected, with the reason for rejection provided in writing; 4) the entire disposal process must be completed within the next six months; 5) no citizen shall be deprived of the benefits of government schemes for any period of time.
The primary objective of this convention is to bring together all rights-conscious citizens, as well as concerned individuals and organizations, to refine the aforementioned demands based on collective input, formulate an acceptable charter of demands, and achieve victory in this struggle through simultaneous battles on the streets and in the courts.
