At a press conference she held at her Kalighat residence immediately after the West Bengal assembly election results were announced on May 4, former West Bengal chief minister, Mamta Bannerjee, whose Trinamool Congress had suffered its first defeat in 15 years, had adamantly declared, “There is no question of me resigning; we were defeated not by public mandate but by conspiracy.” She accused the Election Commission and the central security forces of colluding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to “loot” the election. “I have not lost, so I will not go to Raj Bhavan. I will not tender my resignation,” she said. 

In closed-door meetings she held later with her newly elected MLAs, she reportedly added, “Let them impose President’s Rule if they want. Let them dismiss me if they want. Let this day go down on the record as a black day for democracy.”

Her reason for taking that step was perhaps her realisation that she and her political party, the Trinamool Congress, were not going to be the only, but the first, victims of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s determination to crush the last remnant of India’s democracy – its so far irreproachable election system – and turn India into a fascist ‘Hindu state’. 

The weapon Modi has chosen is a Special Intensive Review of the electoral rolls. The word ‘special’ suggests that the normal annual updating of electoral rolls has been a lackadaisical affair, and needs backstopping every few years with an intensive review of the voters’ lists. Two of these were held in Bihar and West Bengal last year, because of the imminence of the state assembly elections, and were followed by decisive victories of the BJP in West Bengal and the BJP and allied political parties in Bihar. The SIRs have now been completed in the 11 most populous of India’s 28 states, that account for two-thirds of its population and three of its eight Union territories that are ruled directly by the Union government. A pattern is emerging that fully vindicates the Bengal former chief minister’s warning that these so-called SIRs are designed only to allow the Modi government to steal election after election until its grip on the country is complete. 

Why is Modi doing this only now, when he has already been the prime minister of India for the past 11 years? The answer is that he needs to – after the jolt he got from the 2024 Lok Sabha election results – because he knows he can get away with it thanks to the Election Commission whose pliant nature he has reinforced. 

An attempt was made by transparency activists to ensure the government did not fully control the selection of election commissioners and a five-judge bench of the court ruled in March 2023 that the Modi government needed to enact a law that would create a proper, independent, and transparent........

© National Herald