Two successive days of mass mobilisations in Kolkata, West Bengal, on 4 and 5 November witnessed protests against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the attack on democratic voting rights. CPI(ML) Liberation and other Left parties demanded the immediate scrapping of SIR, the removal of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and the restoration of voting rights to every eligible citizen whose name had been unjustly deleted from the electoral rolls.
On 4 November, CPI(ML) Liberation organised a massive protest march through central Kolkata, proceeding to Esplanade and towards the office of the Election Commission's Chief Electoral Officer in West Bengal. Party leaders, activists and members of its mass organisations joined the mobilisation, raising slogans against Vote Chori (vote theft) and the disenfranchisement of voters in the name of SIR.
CPI(ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, Party State Secretary Abhijit Mazumdar and several senior leaders of the Party and its mass organisations addressed the gathering. The protesters demanded the immediate resignation and removal of Gyanesh Kumar, the complete withdrawal of the SIR exercise and the restoration of voting rights to all eligible voters whose names had been deleted.
The mobilisation highlighted the growing resistance against the Election Commission's conduct of the electoral roll revision exercise and the threat it poses to universal adult franchise. The protesters asserted that the right to vote cannot be made dependent on arbitrary documentation requirements or administrative procedures that exclude working people and marginalised communities from the democratic process.
The following day, on 5 November, the Left Front parties, together with CPI(ML) Liberation and the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist), SUCI(C), organised a three-hour protest demonstration in central Kolkata. The programme brought together leaders and activists of various Left parties in a united mobilisation against SIR, including CPIML GS Comrade Dipankar and CPM state committee secretary Md Salim.
Addressing the joint Left gathering, Dipankar emphasised the need to build a broad-based people's movement to defend voting rights, irrespective of electoral alliances. He stressed that the immediate task was to unite all those resisting vote theft and ensure that the movement reached the grassroots.
Dipankar called upon Left activists to reach out to people whose names had been deleted from electoral rolls and organise resistance at the booth level, rather than limiting the movement to rallies and public meetings. He emphasised that the struggle to defend voting rights must be carried forward through sustained mass mobilisation.
CPI(M) West Bengal State Secretary Mohammed Salim also addressed the gathering, emphasising the need to defend the independence of the Election Commission and the democratic rights of the people.
The two successive mobilisations in Kolkata formed part of the growing nationwide movement against SIR and Vote Chori. They followed the massive INDIA bloc rally at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi on 1 November, where opposition parties and democratic organisations had called for the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, repeal of the law governing the appointment of Election Commissioners and restoration of voting rights to all excluded voters.
While the forces responsible for such repression had been pushed back by people's struggles, Comrade Manju Devi's revolutionary legacy continued to inspire movements of women and girls across the country, from Delhi to the remotest villages.
Drawing attention to the present political situation, the memorial meeting condemned the BJP-RSS government's authoritarian offensive against democratic movements. They criticised the targeting of those questioning the government through labels such as "anti-national" and "Dimagi Naxal", along with intimidation and attacks involving sections of the media, police and right-wing groups.
