CPI(M)s Md Salim says SIR Electoral Roll revision will goal marginalised folks and strip democratic rights

“We have to just accept that India is a multilingual nation, the union authorities’s tactic of 1 nation, one election, one language can not work right here. This assault on Bengalis throughout the nation is an assault on the range, democracy, and unity of our nation,” Mr Salim stated. He additionally added that tagging all Bengali-speaking folks as Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshis is a solution to “different” a sure class of individuals and assault them. 

He alleged that Bharatiya Janta Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh supported organisations are placing varied labels on Bengalis and pushing them out of BJP-ruled states, and generally exterior India into Bangladesh, and in some circumstances, they’re being tagged within the class of uncertain voters. 

“We have plenty of partition refugees, these displaced Bengalis got a spot to remain in Andaman, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh through the partition disaster. How can they abuse the identical folks for talking Bengali and name them Bangladeshis?” Mr Salim stated whereas addressing a press convention in Kolkata. He additionally stated that in some unspecified time in the future, it’s going to have an effect on all communities, and never simply Bengalis. He accused that after the Matua neighborhood was given playing cards to show their id, now the identical authorities is attacking them in varied BJP-ruled States. 

Mr Salim stated that the measure to revise the electoral voter listing by way of the SIR is a measure to take away the marginalised folks from the voter lists and take away their voting rights.  

“Under SIR, everybody should show their citizenship. Back within the day, in any democratic State, the federal government wanted to show an individual’s citizenship; now the onus is solely on the folks,” Mr Salim stated whereas responding to a query by The Hindu. He added that the magnitude at which the central authorities is planning to implement the SIR electoral roll revision will have an effect on everybody. “If it burns my home at this time, quickly it’s going to burn all different homes,” Mr Salim concluded. 

War of phrases 

West Bengal and its politicians have been participating in a political confrontation over the previous few weeks after a number of circumstances of Bengali-speaking migrant employees being focused in States like Odisha, Delhi, Maharashtra, and Chhatisgarh got here to mild. 

On Wednesday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hit the streets in Kolkata to protest in opposition to the assault on Bengali migrants in varied BJP-ruled States. The Trinamool Congress chairperson warned of dire penalties if concentrating on of Bengali migrants didn’t cease. “The poor who go to work exterior. They might be made to work after which despatched to jail in the event that they converse in Bengali. Why? What is your [BJP] proper? Is West Bengal not in India? Why a lot hatred in opposition to Bengalis,” Ms. Banerjee stated. 

The TMC management is elevating the problem of assault on “Bengali id” together with the assault on migrants. The situation of Bengali id and delight had helped the social gathering tide over the BJP within the 2021 Assembly polls. 

On the day, the TMC chief held a march to protest in opposition to the assault on migrants, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari met the State’s Chief Electoral Officer demanding a radical revision of the voter listing in West Bengal in the identical method that it’s being carried out in Bihar.