‘Logical discrepancy is illogical’

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee recently created history when she appeared personally in the Supreme Court to argue a case. As a “party in person,” she challenged the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, citing potential mass exclusion of voters. Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, a senior advocate specialising in constitutional writ jurisdiction, spoke to Vibha Sharma of The Stateman on the CM’s Supreme Court appearance and the reasons behind it.

Q. It was a rare occasion. Never before have we seen a chief minister appear personally to plead a case in the Supreme Court.

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A. Yes. Normally, chief ministers, while in office, do not practise in any court because they are holding an office of profit and are public servants. But here the case was different. When millions of people are being harassed day in and day out due to the faulty procedure adopted by the Election Commission of India, for the first time in the history of India, as the leader of the people of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee had to come forward for the redressal of the grievances of those being harassed for small mistakes in their names, or in the names of their father or mother.

Q. It was also politically very interesting. Who was behind this unique strategy?

A. Didi herself. But she did not appear as chief minister, although it was widely publicised that she appeared as one. She has a dual identity – as the CM and the Chairperson of the Trinamool Congress. This was also not her first appearance as a lawyer. She has appeared in district courts, coming to the defence of people facing political persecution during the Left Front regime. In the Supreme Court, she appeared as the leader of the All India Trinamool Congress to protect the people of West Bengal from the unprecedented harassment by the ECI. The rigour, the torture of this SIR has been going on for the past two and a half months. Mamata Banerjee has publicly said, “I will see how they harass our people and, if necessary, I will go to any length to stop all this nonsense.” She wrote dozens of letters pinpointing the issues for which the common people of the state are being harassed day in and day out, subjected to illogical and inhuman treatment by enumerators and others engaged by the ECI. There are procedural issues as well. Earlier, the ECI used to issue written circulars, and T N Seshan was famous for that. Circulars are official documents. But under the instructions of the present Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, WhatsApp messages are being issued to Chief Electoral Officers in states, and they too are sending such messages to their subordinates. WhatsApp messages cannot be considered official documents; I am saying this as a lawyer. If I want to challenge a particular instruction of the EC, how can I do that with a WhatsApp message? How many people have screenshots of a WhatsApp message? Forget those who are illiterate and poor – even educated people may not have them. The last Census was done in 2011. For 15 years, there has been no Census, yet we say there are 140 crore people in the country. Who knows whether there are 140 crore or 180 crore people in the country? Forget about the volume of the population; I am talking about those have-nots, who do not have anything. How can they understand mobile phones or WhatsApp messages, and that too in the English language? This is not the USA, England, Switzerland, Sweden, France, or Germany. The ground reality needs to be taken into consideration; otherwise, this inhuman act on the part of the authorities will continue. Do you know how people have been made to suffer because of this SIR?

Q. Don’t you think it was high time that such an exercise was undertaken to update the electoral rolls?

A. Of course, but not this way. The primary duty of the ECI is to hold elections and prepare a voter list – a genuine voter list of citizens who are permanent residents of India and will vote in the election. Naturally, the EC has a right to know whether I am living at the address given by me in my documents. But not in the way this so-called Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll, which has hardly any mention in the Electoral Manual, the Representation of the People Act, or the Constitution of India, is taking place. Tell me, if I do not have my name in the 2002 electoral list, for whatever reason – I was not born then or for some other reason – what then? In 2002, it took almost two years to complete the electoral rolls, not like the SIR in Bihar, which was done in one and a half months, or in West Bengal. More than 10 million people have been left out, and the phrase being used is ‘logical discrepancy,’ which, according to me, is absolutely illogical.

Q. And why do you say that? Can you explain?

A. Because it happened to me. I am a sufferer of a spelling mistake in my name made by enumerators. My name is Sukhendu Sekhar Ray – Ray, not Roy. When I was submitting my nomination for the Rajya Sabha, I found that my surname had been spelled as Roy. Who did it? I do not know. I did not do it. It must have been the enumerator appointed by the ECI. Since there was hardly any time left, I filled in my nomination paper as Roy, although in all my documents, my surname was spelled as Ray. Had I written Ray, my nomination would have been rejected because it did not tally with the voters’ list. But immediately after I became an MP, I got it corrected, both in the electoral roll and in all the records of Parliament. I wrote to each and every department, submitting all documents – right from my passport, school-leaving certificate, Aadhaar card, PAN card, ration card – everything. I was born at home, not in a hospital or a nursing home. In the year 1949, there was no system for registering births or deaths. It must have happened to millions of people all over the country. Even today, millions of people do not have birth certificates. Why? Because there was no system. I am an educated person and had the means to get it corrected. What about a person living in a remote village? The majority of India still lives in villages; millions live in slums in cities – how are they to know and get it done? My point also is: what was the special occasion that, all of a sudden, after 24 years, Kumbhakarna woke up and said there will be an SIR? There must be some reason, some reasonable apprehension. What was that reasonable apprehension – that there are manipulations in the electoral roll? These manipulations have continued for 24 years, almost three decades. Several Assemblies have been constituted, and Parliament has been constituted several times. Governments came and went based on these allegedly manipulated electoral rolls for 24 long years. So why now? What was the BJP afraid of?

Q. Since you are suggesting political motives, what is your prediction for the upcoming elections in West Bengal after the SIR exercise?

A. We are not soothsayers. We do not make predictions. We only say that as long as Mamata ji is there, no party in Bengal will be able to do anything. Suddenly, overnight, we have all become Pakistanis because we speak Bengali. Remember, the man who wrote your national anthem was a Bengali. Today, we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram; its writer was also a Bengali. Today, widows can remarry because of a Bengali. The whole world knows this; it is written in history in golden letters. People who build your bridges, work as labourers, or as artisans in jewellery shops – when they speak Bangla, they are teased and harassed. The Delhi Police forcefully arrested people and took them to Assam, compelling Mamata Banerjee to declare publicly that she will go to any extent to stop this savage and barbaric situation created by the ECI under Gyanesh Kumar, a puppet of the Narendra Modi government. Today, even if you go to purchase a SIM card, you have to produce an Aadhaar card. What was Aadhaar envisaged for? To identify those receiving benefits. Everywhere, you have to produce an Aadhaar card. The mandate of the ECI is that if you cannot produce any of the 12 documents along with your Aadhaar card, you are out of the electoral roll – and to what consequence, Mamata Banerjee knows this better than anybody else. There is the Assam experience. Do you know how many people are living in detention camps in Assam? Those are not detention camps; those are concentration camps like those of Hitler. Minimum healthcare is not available, minimum food supply is not available, yet they are living there and dying there. This inhuman treatment of the people of India should stop; otherwise, it will become a mockery of our democracy. In the name of SIR, genuine voters are being eliminated from the electoral roll for the political purpose of the ruling party at the Centre.