Bengal SIR dispute again reaches Supreme Court, TMC claims – victory margin on 31 seats is less than the removed votes.

The controversy regarding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list in West Bengal has once again heated up in the Supreme Court. After the defeat in the assembly elections, Trinamool Congress (TMC) claimed in the Supreme Court that there is a huge correlation between the number of voters removed and the victory margin in many seats in the state. The party says the victory margin in at least 31 assembly seats was less than the votes that were removed from the voter list during the SIR process.

During the hearing held in the Supreme Court on Monday, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi allowed TMC to file a fresh petition on this issue. The court said that if concrete data is produced proving the impact of removed voters on the election results, the matter can be considered in detail.

On behalf of Mamata Banerjee’s party, senior leader Kalyan Bandyopadhyay argued in the court that a large number of voters’ names were removed under the SIR process, which affected the election results. Giving an example, he said that in an assembly seat, a candidate lost by only 862 votes, whereas in the same area, names of more than 5432 voters were removed from the list.

TMC told the court that the total difference of votes between BJP and TMC across the state was around 32 lakh, while around 35 lakh appeals were pending in the Appellate Tribunal. The party alleges that the process of removing names from the voter list was not transparent and this affected the democratic process.

During the hearing, Justice Joymalya Bagchi said that if the margin of victory in a seat is less than the number of voters removed, then it can become a subject of judicial inquiry. He directed TMC to file an Interlocutory Application (IA) with all necessary facts and figures.

Meanwhile, senior advocate Dama Sheshadri Naidu, appearing for the Election Commission, opposed TMC’s arguments. He said that if any party has objection to the election results, then the appropriate remedy is to file an Election Petition and not to create a separate dispute on the basis of SIR process.

Kalyan Bandyopadhyay requested the court to give a clear order that deletion of names of voters under SIR can also be considered as the basis for election petition. However, the Chief Justice said that the court cannot give such an order directly. The court said that first a formal application should be filed, after which the arguments of all the parties will be considered.

During the hearing, it was also informed that former Chief Justice of West Bengal High Court T.S. Sivagananam has resigned from the post of member of the Appellate Tribunal. The court expressed concern over this and said that the biggest priority should be early disposal of the pending appeals.

Senior advocate Maneka Guruswamy told the court that at the current pace the appeals could take up to four years to be disposed of. On this, the Supreme Court has sought a report from the Election Commission and the concerned authorities as to how the pending cases can be settled within the stipulated time.

The political atmosphere is already heated in West Bengal regarding the SIR process. TMC has been continuously alleging that changes in the voter list affected the election results, while the Election Commission has been rejecting these allegations. Now after this matter reached the Supreme Court, this issue has again come to the center stage in the politics of Bengal.