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Kolkata, Oct 25 (IANS) Rights groups including the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) on Saturday organized a protest rally against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists planned in West Bengal by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
As the poll panel is gearing up to conduct the SIR of Bengal’s voter list, the rights body claimed that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be conducted in the name of SIR.
To express their protest, members of the rights group took out a rally from College Street in North Kolkata to Dorina Crossing in Central Kolkata.
APDR alleged that a conspiracy is going on to snatch away the voting rights and citizenship of many people through this process.
APDR general secretary Ranjit Sur said, “To prepare the voter list under SIR, every person aged 18 years and above will have to mandatorily fill the SIR form. But none of these will be mentioned in the voter card. Then why is it being taken away?”
He said that he does not want SIR but wants an accurate voter list. According to him, the exact voter list has been revised and updated twice.
The APDR general secretary further said, “They will conduct the NRC based on all this information. An attempt was made in 2019 to include this information with the census. But then due to pressure from the citizen’s movement, the government could not do so. The responsibility of proving citizenship has been imposed on the individual. This is against the Indian judicial system. Moreover, the Election Commission has no authority in this matter. There is a Supreme Court judgment in this regard. Most people do not get all this. Will get.” The documents that are being sought.”
The rights body claimed that the Election Commission was accepting neither Aadhaar nor voter card. They fear that if the common man is not able to submit the documents properly, his citizenship will be taken away.
–IANS
SH/UK