Journalist
Fanatics may be lapping up the deletion of 91 lakh voters in West Bengal in the name of SIR, with the hope that it would ensure electoral triumph of the Saffron Brigade, following some simple arithmetics, but they tend to forget that one of the fundamental principles of jurisprudence goes like this: It is better for guilty persons to escape than for one innocent person to be convicted. Historically traced to English jurist William Blackstone in 1769, it dictates that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. It prioritizes preventing wrongful convictions over ensuring all criminals are punished, ensuring that innocent individuals are not wrongly deprived of their liberty. High courts in India have also emphasized that “1000 culprits can escape, but, one innocent person should not be punished”. Depriving and denying a genuine/bonafide voter of his/her right to universal adult franchise therefore clearly defies this fundamental doctrine.
The logic (no matter where the logic may have come from!) that a deprived/deleted genuine voter will get chances/opportunities to get him/her enlisted in some future elections is ludicrous and flouts the fundamental doctrine of jurisprudence, in the same spirit.
Little wonder therefore that SIR has turned out to be the single biggest issue in Bengal polls, this time round, overshadowing all other issues which might have gone against the ruling TMC government in Bengal. The socalled Saffron ploy of deleting even genuine, bonafide voters- mostly Muslim voters, who otherwise have been voting for the Bengal’s ruling party in a consolidated manner- may actually backfire on more counts than one. As much 30 per cent of the Bengal’s electorate comes from the muslim population. If that percentage gets consolidated and rallies behind TMC, Mamata Banerjee’s party will have to manage little over 15 per cent from the remaining 70 per cent voters, which is not a tall order, given the fact that liberal Hindus never stand beside the so-called Hindu hardliners.
The other ploy of the Saffron satraps to divide the Muslim votes by way of clandenstinely patronising regional anti-TMC Muslim front like that of Humayun Kabir (the frequent political turncoat and former TMC minister & MLA, who has been building a multi-billion dollar Babri Mosque in his home district, Murahidabad) has also been badly exposed in the wake of the release of a 19 minute long sting operation video that has brought to light a Rs 1000 crore deal allegedly between Humayun Kabir and BJP’s top leadership including some PMO officials, Assam chief minister, Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Bengal’s leader of the oppposition and Bengal BJP’s posterboy Suvendu Adhikary. The main opposition party in the state cannot simply get away with branding it an AI-generated video. Significantly, several leaders, office bearers, party candidates of Humayun Kabir’s party (who are all local Muslim leaders) have started leaving the party (some of them have joined TMC also) shortly after the release of the video. That’s not all. Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, an electoral ally of Humayun Kabir’s party, has alnost immediately severed all ties with Kabir’s party. This latest development will not only take away the Muslim votebank which would have directly or indirectly helped the BJP, but has hugely upset a large segment of the Hindu voters over the way BJP leadership had gone whole hog to patronise a Muslim outfit, whose founder and suoreme leader has been publicly toeing a communal line.
This develooment is bound to tarnish the image of the Left Front as well, because their state secretary, Md Selim also tried to work out an electoral alliance with Kabir’s party.
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Mind you that the BJP is yet to build that strong an organisational base in Bengal to take on the mighty, well oiled election machinery of the TMC. BJP’s state and district leaderships were merrily depending on “different other skills” of their national leadership and have been dreaming of coming to power banking on deletion of names, unholy electoral nexus, supports from Centre-controlled institutions, so on and so forth. The latest developments will certainly push them on backfoot, the anti-incumbency factor and grievances and reservations against the Mamata Banerjee-led government notwithstanding. It is snowballing into an interesting, complex and nasty electoral battle, for sure.
