One of the objectives of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in Bihar during June and July this year was to detect and delete names of foreign illegal immigrants in the voter list for its purification.
But when Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar was asked to specify the number of illegal migrants, ghuspathiyas (infiltrators), detected and deleted in Bihar on completion of SIR in the state he
CEC Kumar was obfuscating the preparation of electoral roll rightly described by former CEC S.Y. Qureshi as the “soft under belly of election commission.” He famously stated that the outcome in elections in favour or against a political party is decided at the time when electoral roll is prepared and finalised.
Yogendra Yadav brought to light that out of the total 3.75 lakh objections raised only a minuscule number of
. It lays bare the lies of CEC Kumar and the BJP regarding their claims that Bihar has been infiltrated by a large number of illegal foreigners who have been deceitfully registered as voters.
Modi and Shah’s ‘ghuspathiya’ claim
Top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah vociferously stated in election rallies that ghuspatiyas are eating away resources of Bihar by getting themselves enrolled as voters. As a sequel to such false narratives spun in election meetings, BJP allegedly approached the ECI with a demand that the names of 80,000 voters, who happen to be Muslims in Dhaka constituency of Bihar, should be removed.
The Reporters Collective which brought to light the BJP’s demand, after conducting investigation, asserted that the action of the ECI to remove such a large number of voters would amount to erasing 40% of the eligible voters from the final list in the constituency.
It clearly proved the point that the ghuspaithiya agenda of the BJP and specifically its top leaders including Prime Minister Modi and Union home minister Shah is manufactured and is being peddled to emerge as the central narrative of the party to win the mandate of the people in the assembly polls scheduled to take place today and on November 12 in Bihar.
On October 17, eleven days after the election schedule for Bihar was announced, Shah said in defence of the SIR exercise in the state that it would purge from the voter list, among others, He charged that the opposition parties specially the Congress launched protests because after 2003 many foreign nationals have succeeded in getting their names added to the voters’ list in fraudulent ways and they constituted their solid vote banks for winning elections.
He went on to add that infiltrators regardless of their religion should never be enrolled as a voter. While criticising those bringing religion into the issue, Shah very sharply asked, “Muslims, if infiltrators, should we still let them remain on the voters’ list just because they are Muslim?”
“There is no greater sin,” he added, “than bringing religion into the question of infiltrators” harming our democracy. Therefore, he focused attention on three Ds – detection, deletion and deportation – so that they could be detected, and their names could be deleted from the electoral roll and eventually deported from the country.
What he said in the context of Bihar flows from a contrived pattern scripted by the BJP and Shah to make the issue of infiltrators the most important electoral issue to corner opposition for its alleged vested interest in making them the source of their votes for winning elections. It was evidenced in the elections for Jharkhand assembly when Shah made a preposterous claim that the Jharkhand Mukti Mocha-led alliance converted illegal immigrants into “vote banks” and promised to wipe out infiltration from the state.
Such obsession to seek votes of the electorate in the name of eliminating infiltration testifies the desperate attempts of the BJP to divert people’s attention from the basic issues. Earlier it was done by Prime Minister Modi while campaigning during general elections in 2024 when he charged that the Congress party would give people’s wealth to infiltrators, those who have more children in tune with its so-called policy which held that Muslims had first right over the resources of the country.
Such compulsive emphasis by Modi and Shah to remove the names of infiltrators from voter list is nothing but a dog whistle to cleanse the electoral roll of those Muslims who have been enrolled as voters.
Shah also claimed in October this year that the Muslim population went up at a whooping rate of 24.6%while the Hindu population came down by 4.5%. Very strangely he attributed this alarming decline not to the lower fertility rate but rather to infiltration which he claimed endangered democracy and culture.
BJP monetising CAA in West Bengal
BJP’s attack on foreign infiltrators constitutes a signal to target the Muslims of India. However, when it comes to the foreign nationals within India professing Hindu faith, the BJP adopts a very soft approach. Recently The Wire reported that the BJP has started ear India-Bangladesh boarder where BJP leaders including Union minister Shantanu Thakur and his brother Subrata Thakur have established operations to distribute so-called ‘Matua identity cards’ and ‘Hindu identity cards’ to help Matua community which apparently migrated from Bangladesh decades ago and are desperately seeking to become citizens of India under Citizenship Amendment Act and get enrolled as voters.
The startling disclosure that Rs 800 are charged by BJP leaders from those Matuas seeking citizenship of India has shocked many because it is monetising Matuas’ CAA applications. For getting the votes of foreign nationals such as Matuas belonging to Dalit categories such illegal and unethical practices adopted by the BJP exposes its double standards in dealing with the issue.
The Wire article quoted one Swapan Biswas who while standing in a queue stated, “I’m hearing that if we don’t listen to them, they’ll push us into Bangladesh. Every time elections come, this fear starts.
Those frightening words uttered at a time when the ECI has issued orders to conduct SIR in 12 states including West Bengal captures the fear and anxiety among those who are apprehending that they might lose their right to vote as the BJP is selectively using religion to include some people in the voter list and exclude others in a targeted manner. When the Supreme Court is still adjudicating the issue of SIR and yet to decide its constitutional validity the petitioners and all concerned must raise the issue and also take it to people as they did in Bihar during the historic Vote Adhikar rally. Eventually people have to be sensitised so that they are not disenfranchised in a targeted manner by the SIR process.
S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.