Move to bring NRC through backdoor: TMC on EC's special intensive revision of electoral roll

New Delhi: "It is a sinister move to bring NRC (National Register of Citizens) through the backdoor," said Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien on Saturday about the special intensive revision of electoral roll announced by the Election Commission. Questioning the timing of the drive, the Trinamool Congress, at a press conference here, said the INDIA bloc parties will take up the issue both inside and outside Parliament. The Election Commission last Monday issued instructions to carry out a Special Intensive Revision in Bihar to weed out ineligible names and ensure all eligible citizens are included in the electoral roll, allowing them to exercise their franchise in the polls slated later this year.

Amid allegations of voter data being fudged to help the BJP, the exercise also introduces complete transparency in the process of addition or deletion of electors in the rolls. The last intensive revision for Bihar was conducted in 2003. "Why is this exercise being suddenly done right now?" O'Brien asked rhetorically at the press conference. "We have evidence as to why it is being done now. It is because the latest internal survey of the BJP for Bengal shows 46-49 seats for the BJP in the state's assembly polls (early next year). In their desperation to attempt to change things you do such things," he claimed. "It's a sinister move to bring NRC through the backdoor," alleged the TMC Rajya Sabha parliamentary party leader. He added that INDIA bloc parties will take up the issue both inside and outside Parliament. "We are all on the same page on this. We will not wait for Parliament to start. This cannot wait," O'Brien said.

On Friday, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) wrote to the poll panel on the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and urged it to abandon the exercise. In a letter to Chief Election Commission Gyanesh Kumar, CPI(M) Politburo member Nilotpal Basu stated that while review of electoral rolls is a normal and routine process, the proposals appear to be putting a major part of the responsibility for inclusion or deletion from the electoral rolls is being imposed on the voters themselves. After Bihar, the Election Commission will carry out a similar review of electoral rolls by the end of this year in five states going to polls in 2026. The terms of the legislative assemblies of Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are ending in May-June next year.