'Every Political Party Will Be BJP-ised'

'Look at the way SIR that was implemented in Bengal. They wanted to entirely curate the voter list in order to suit their purposes and victory.'

'Look at the targeted deletions and the targeted voting list.'

The difference between the TMC and the BJP was only about 4% but that 4% vote was done so selectively that the difference ultimately showed up as 100 seats!'

2026 will be remembered for the five high octane assembly elections.

But what will history tell us about these elections?

Political commentator Parakala Prabhakar, a strong critic of SIR (Special Intensive Revision), discusses the assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.

"At the end of this SIR, India is going to have two classes of people. One class with vote. One class without vote. It means India is going to have two classes of people. One with full rights including the right to participate in the political process. The other one with partial rights," Mr Prabhakar tells Rediff's Shobha Warrier in part one of a two-part must read interview.

"Imagine a community where about 500 people live. None of them have a vote. Would any political party go there? Will they be given water, ration, road, school, hospital? Nothing."

Before the election, you wrote a note that you got the feeling the BJP wanted to take Bengal, unseat Stalin, defeat the UDF in Kerala and reduce the Congress to under 20 seats in Assam, and that your fear was the popular mood would not reflect in the voting machine. Except for Kerala, what you said has come true....

Their main targets were Stalin and Mamata Banerjee and they have succeeded.

Assam also, they have confined the Congress to 20 or below 20.

As I said in the write-up I sent you, the dilemma for the BJP in Kerala was whether to take out the Left and declare India as completely a Left-free country, or to demoralise the Congress.

I think they chose the former option so that the Congress also will be handicapped about talking foul. Then they will say, you won Kerala and that is okay?

In the India Alliance or outside the India Alliance, who are the people who are very robustly standing against the BJP and NDA and questioning?

One. Stalin because he raises these issues of federalism, devolution of finances and many other issues.

Then Mamata because she is very defiant.

The signs are very clear from the amount of central forces that were dumped in Bengal and the kind of transfers that were effected from the district level onwards, leave alone the chief secretary or the DGP or the district collectors.

A large number of police stations were taken over by the central forces. Even after polling, the central forces were directed to stay put until further notice which means they were anticipating some kind of trouble if the outcome was not going to be reflective of the general mood of the public.

Look at the way SIR that was implemented in Bengal. They wanted to entirely curate the voter list in order to suit their purposes and victory.

Another thing is look at the targeted deletions and the targeted voting list.

The difference between the TMC and the BJP was only about 4% but that 4% vote was done so selectively that the difference ultimately showed up as 100 seats!

Imagine 4% difference translating into a gap of 100 seats!

So, logical discrepancy is a category which is not there anywhere in SIR.

And the kind of central forces that were brought into Bengal.

The number of central forces that were deployed throughout the country for the 2024 general elections was somewhere around a lakh.

Now in one state, they deployed 2.88 lakhs. That was for Bengal.

It was practically an invasion of Bengal.

It was reported that 29 lakh names were deleted in Bengal. There were pictures of so many people with valid ID cards and they said they could not add their names to the list.

They deleted 93 lakh votes in Bengal. You can contest that. Total deletion was 93 lakhs.

But these 28 lakhs were not declared ineligible.

The other people were declared ineligible, and you might have done it rightly or wrongly, which is a contestable thing.

But in the case of these 28 lakhs, you have not even declared them ineligible.

Then how can you deny them the right to vote?

I don't care who wins and who loses. Let us keep that aside. It doesn't matter to me.

My concern as a citizen of this country is, even if one person, an eligible person, is denied their voting right, that cannot be a legitimate election in my book.

You mean this has never happened in India before?

This has never happened in India before.

How can you deny 28 lakh people the right to vote even when you have not declared them ineligible?

Then, how can we really take this as a legitimate election?

I would have argued the same thing even if Mamata Banerjee had won the election. I would have said that that election is not a proper election because you have kept 28 lakh people out.

You said, we are creating two classes of citizens, one with the right to vote and another without it...

Yes.

Mostly the political parties and the media discourse is now centred only on which party is benefiting from SIR and which party is losing because of SIR.

I am not concerned about that. It might help a party in one or two elections. But there are far reaching implications of SIR.

That far reaching implications are as follows:

One. At the end of this SIR, India is going to have two classes of people.

One class with vote. One class without vote.

One with franchise, one without franchise.

It also means India is going to have two classes of people.

One a first class, the other one is a second class.

One with full rights including the right to participate in the political process. The other one with partial rights.

Then it goes further if you want to go further.

Imagine a community where about 500 people live. None of them have a vote. Would any political party go there? Will they be given water, ration, road, school, hospital? Nothing.

It means that you are going to end up with a country where some people have franchise, all rights, all benefits, and another class of people without franchise, without rights, without facilities.

Whether you want to still live here or not is your choice then.

But they have made sure that the situation is so hostile to you.

In fact, if you go back and recall what the Assam chief minister had said some time ago, 'I can't really chase these miyas out of my state. So I create conditions in such a way that they themselves will leave.'

But where will they go? This is their country too...

But the current dispensation thinks they belong to Pakistan, they belong to Bangladesh.

So, the attitude is, go away, you have a country, you go there.

That is exactly what is happening now.

There are larger implications for the political system and the economic system also, and you have to be extremely careful in studying this.

This will lead to a situation where only some people are going to be able to participate in your political process. It means that any political party which wants to contest elections in that political system, will inevitably address the issues concerning only that particular section of people who have a vote.

It also means every political party will be BJP-ised. Every political party will become like the BJP.

Slowly and slowly, the religious symbols will start becoming the state symbols.

Because anybody who doesn't belong to that religious symbol or that religious culture are out of the political system anyway. So you don't have to address them.

In the short run, it might benefit the BJP, but in the long run every political party will be like the BJP.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff