'August 8 Has Come and Gone': CPI(ML) Leader Pushes INDIA Bloc to Unite on SIR

The Opposition's INDIA bloc cannot keep fighting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls one State at a time. That was the pointed message from CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, who pressed the alliance to shape a single national response — and did little to hide his frustration over a promised meeting that never happened.

A Meeting That Never Happened

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Bhattacharya traced the delay back to June 8, when the INDIA bloc last met in Delhi and decided that another meeting would be held within two months. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, he recalled, had announced that the gathering would take place on August 8 in Hyderabad.

"August 8 has come and gone, but the meeting has not happened. We have raised it with the Congress. There are several issues on which the INDIA bloc needs to take a unified position," Mr. Bhattacharya said.

The silence since then, he suggested, has left the alliance without a common strategy at a moment that clearly demands one.

From State Battles to a National Picture

The SIR, he stressed, sits near the top of that list of unresolved issues.

"So far, every State and the Opposition have responded to the SIR challenge in their own way. Now we have the all-India picture emerging; it is high time that we take a national view and evolve a collective response," he said.

The urgency, in his telling, is written into the electoral rolls themselves. In both Bihar and West Bengal, he said, the impact of the SIR has been felt through mass exclusions of voters. A similar purge has happened in Uttar Pradesh too, he added — one that warrants closer scrutiny. With Assembly polls due in 2027 in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Manipur and Goa, the stakes are hard to miss.

Contesting 2027, With or Without the Bloc

Mr. Bhattacharya confirmed his party would contest the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab. "If possible, as part of the INDIA bloc, if a broader coalition emerges," he said — and if that does not happen, CPI(ML) Liberation would fight on its own or as part of the Left bloc.

"In all these States, if you look at the ground situation, the people are fed up with these governments," he added.

Yet he stopped short of predicting outcomes, arguing that what he described as mass disenfranchisement has clouded the electoral picture. The public anger, though, is real — and he pointed to a recent flashpoint in the capital as proof: "What made Jantar Mantar click? It was UP. It was the anger of U.P. voters that spilled over into the streets of Delhi."

How the Delay Unfolded