SIR exercise in Bihar is akin to votebandi: CPI(ML) chief Dipankar Bhattacharya

Hindustan Times

04-07-2025

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, whose party is a key constituent of the Opposition INDIA bloc in Bihar, describes the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the poll-bound state as 'votebandi'. Edited excerpts of his interview to Saubhadra Chatterji: Dipankar Bhattacharya
What are the key issues for the INDIA bloc in the upcoming Bihar elections?
People feel completely let down and betrayed by the Nitish Kumar's government. Kumar's major plank was development but now you find Bihar completely mired in poverty, unemployment and people are reeling under huge debt burden. Then another major key assurance was good governance and law and order. Today, it's like a reign of complete crime. People are looking for a change.
There are a lot of talks that women vote for Nitish Kumar. That was a period when women indeed preferred him. But now, when a mid-day meal worker gets only ₹1,650 for 10 months a year, that support base has eroded.
Caste is a dominant factor in Bihar politics. Don't you think JD(U)-BJP alliance appeals to the upper caste, Kurmis, non-Yadav OBCs and EBCs?
People often forget that caste is a very dynamic thing. Caste equations are not cast in stone. Also, caste doesn't operate in a vacuum. So, it's not that if there is huge poverty, unemployment, these things don't affect a particular caste. No caste is insulated from this kind of a crisis situation. Especially in this kind of a social and economic crisis, every other caste equation changes. There is no such thing as like a fixed equation. That's why I don't think that any particular caste is a captive vote bank of any particular party.
You met the CEC over the ongoing SIR exercise in Bihar.
The suddenness with which, without any consultation or prior indication, the election commission has taken up this state campaign, which is logistically impossible, it has completely changed the terms of discourse. Earlier, the citizens and the voters didn't have to prove that they were citizens. It was the job of the state to prove that so and so is an illegitimate voter. Now, the EC has shifted it to the voters. This is like 'votebandi'.
Voters whose names were not there in the 2003 voter list will have to prove that they are citizens. And the conditions that have been set by EC makes it very difficult for the people of Bihar. EC has put out a figure saying that the 2003 voter list means some 5 crore (50 million) people are there, so they won't have to produce anything. But this is a statistical illusion, because of those 5 crore people, nearly one-fifth might have passed away or migrated to other states.
…This means that today, when you have an adult population of more than 8 crore, roughly 4.5 to 5 crore people will have to prove their citizenship. And this has to be done in just one month, within July 26th.
What is the status of seat-sharing agreement among the INDIA bloc allies?
Talks are underway. We have had one-on-one talks with the Congress and RJD. All parties have submitted their lists of seats that they would like to contest. A collective call will be taken. I'm sure seat sharing won't really be a big problem. We should be able to complete it maybe within a month.