Scientific Rigging - one chapter

Voter card slur on CPM
UTTAM DUTTA

Hooghly, April 2: Residents in three villages of Hooghly have alleged that their voter identity cards were taken away by CPM activists who said they would get job cards made for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

A month has gone by but the cards have not returned.

All the 50 villagers who alleged their cards were taken away are elderly, illiterate residents, living below the poverty line. The villages in the Gurap area — Ruprajpur, Garalmuri and Balidanga — of Hooghly are tribal dominated. Many of the elderly tribals live off begging.

Kanan Singh, 70, of Ruprajpur, said she used to work in a house in Calcutta’s Bhowanipore as a domestic help about two years ago. Now, she washes clothes and utensils in neighbours’ houses for about Rs 60 a month. “Some CPM leaders came to my house and took my voter card last month, telling me that they will get me a job card. But the card has not been returned,” said Kanan, sitting in her dark mud house, about 80km from Calcutta.

Chhanu Singh, 65, also from Ruprajpur, said her voter card, too, was taken away on the same pretext. “There are at least 50 old men and women in Ruprajpur, Garalmuri and Balidanga villages whose cards have been taken away by CPM leaders,” Chhanu said.

The CPM activists also came to 55-year-old farm labourer Mangala Singh’s house in the same village and took his card away.

The villagers complained to members of the Jharkhand Disham Party when they visited Gurap last week. “When we asked the villagers if they had voter cards, about 50 of them told us their cards had been taken away by CPM men. Many of them are beggars,” said Lakshmi Hansda, secretary of the Jharkhand Disham Party in Hooghly.

District magistrate Neelam Meena said: “I will look into their complaints.”

Most local CPM leaders denied having taken the cards, but the party’s local committee secretary, Shakti Das, said: “We take voter cards from villagers to help them open bank accounts required for the 100 days’ work plan. But the cards are returned after the accounts are opened.”

A few days back I had made a mention of "Scientific Rigging", practised by the CPM.
One of the chapters of the book deals how voters can be prevented from casting their votes by taking their Voter ID Cards under some false pretext and using the cards to cast vote for the party.
This time they have been caught red handed.

Radheshyam