December 11, 2025
Dola Sen‘s speech during the discussion on Election Reforms
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Chairman, Sir, for giving me chance to speak on electoral reforms. I am grateful to my party,
All India Trinamool Congress, and our respected leader, hon. Chief Minister of Bengal, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, for giving me an opportunity to be here and to deliver my speech on this important subject. I will try to speak in Bangla, my mother language. That is why they harass and torment Bengal. In all ‘Double Engine Government’ states, if anyone speaks up in Bengal, they are labelled ‘Bangladeshi’ or ‘Rohingya’ and are either thrown in jail, beaten up, or
forcibly pushed back to Bangladesh using JCBs. One after another, honourable ministers stand in Parliament and speak untruths about Bengal. Yet, despite being challenged, they do not publish a white paper. Yet, Bengal remains the same. Look, the Treasury Bench was forced to discuss ‘Vande Mataram’ instead of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ for three
days. I hundred per cent agree to that, Sir. What the Supreme Court said is very important. If someone is born in India and grows up here, they have the rights of a valid citizen. Therefore, in a country of 1.5 billion people like India, where most people struggle to make ends meet, a document-based verification process is unfeasible. That is why
there is so much tension and confusion regarding this hasty Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The citizen has to prove that they are a citizen. Is the Election Commission’s job only to delete names? Is it so? Previously people voted to form the Government, but now the Government is deciding who is a citizen and who is not? Who is a voter and who isn’t? I want to ask, why was 2002 decided upon? In 2002, we were senior enough. We didn’t just fill out a form like this for SIR. It was a simple revision; but a special intensive revision. So why make 2002 the benchmark? On what criteria? Why is it that in other non-BJP states, SIR will happen because there are votes, but in Assam, because it has a ‘Double Engine Government’, there will only be a simple revision, not SIR! Why won’t SIR happen in border states like Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh? Will it happen only in Bengal just because it is a target? Delimitation is a very important issue for voter lists. The electoral roll came in 2009 after the last delimitation. So, does the 2002 voter list even exist anymore? Everything before 2009 should have been squashed. No list prior to 2009 can be considered anymore.Let us not forget, “No Identity Card, No Vote” – Smt. Mamata Banerjee fought this battle in 1993. On this demand, 13 of our people became martyrs. We are for transparency. But we are against the dictatorship that is going on, the way people are not being treated as humans, the way citizens of the country are being harassed. We condemn, we condemn, and we condemn. My vote is my right. We will not let anyone snatch away the constitutional right to vote from any citizen. Except for valid issues like dead voters, etc., we will not accept any exclusion without a survey or without the family’s consent. Again, we will not accept the inclusion of any outsider – Gujarati, Rajasthani, Haryanvi, from U.P. – by making duplicate EPIC cards. We are not against clear electoral rolls, we are against a process that cleans the rolls by erasing the people. Who is facing the most difficulty? They are those born after 2002. Especially women, whose addresses change after marriage, and even their surnames or titles, and hundreds of thousands of migrant workers or employees who work elsewhere. From 2002 to 2025—after 23 years, you will do an intensive revision in one to two months? Is that even possible in such a populous country? People know to keep their Voter Card and Aadhaar Card with care. Economically backward people take care of their Ration Cards, and those who are better off take care of their PAN cards. But will these suffice? If we consider 18 as the voting age, less than 40 percent of people have passed
their Secondary exams (Matriculation). Then how will the remaining 60% of people provide a Admit Card for Secondary exam? In the country, institutional births are still languishing at about 14.6%. So how many have a
Birth Certificate? 6-7% have a passport. That means landless farmers, agricultural labourers, sharecroppers, private concern employees, unorganized workers, small traders will not be able to provide any of the 11 documents.We want to say clearly that we will not accept any attempt to snatch away the rights granted to people by the Constitution and make them stateless or non-citizens. We, the people of India, will tell the last word.Man is the highest truth, there is nothing above him. We the people of India will tell the last word.
