With West Bengal heading to the polls in just two weeks, credible reports indicate that the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has disenfranchised millions of voters. The SIR exercise, the opposition TMC alleges, has been designed to pave the way for a BJP victory.
In an exclusive interview, Sreenivasan Jain caught up with Suvendu Adhikari, the face of the BJP in West Bengal, who is taking on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Sreenivasan asks him about the bogey of infiltration that the BJP has raised, the SIR exercise, and ‘washing machine’ allegations regarding his own transition from the TMC to the BJP.
Suvendu Adhikari describes the state of border security as “alarming” and points to a significant lack of cooperation from the state government. He asserts that while the Centre was ready to act, “Mamata Banerjee didn't provide land” for essential fencing along a 600 km stretch of the border with Bangladesh. This failure, he argues, has created a vacuum where “anti-Indian and extremist forces are protected.”
He is also firm in his distinction between different groups of migrants, stating clearly that for the BJP, “won't call Hindus from Bangladesh, infiltrators. We call them refugees.”
Addressing the SIR exercise, Adhikari defends the Election Commission against allegations of bias. He notes that “ECI's job is to identify genuine voters and delete those voters who are fake, dead, or non-citizens.” When faced with claims that the process was manipulated to favour the BJP, he shifts the accountability back to the state’s own infrastructure, arguing that “the state government is responsible for the logical discrepancy problem” because the thousands of booth-level officers (BLOs) involved are their employees.
Finally, Adhikari addresses the ‘washing machine’ allegations regarding his own move from the TMC to the BJP in December 2020. He insists his departure from the TMC was a matter of principle, citing “huge nepotism, appeasement, and Mamata Banerjee's autocratic attitude” as his primary motivations, and not the threat of an ED investigation.
Ultimately, he believes the momentum is with his party because “this time the public is ready” for a transition of power.
Watch this exclusive interview.
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