Mamata stages sit-in protest over voter roll deletions ahead of polls
Ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will start a sit-in here on Friday to protest against the alleged arbitrary deletions in the post-SIR electoral rolls in the State. The protest comes just two days before the proposed visit of the full bench of the Election Commission to the State.
The sit-in, scheduled from 2 pm at the Esplanade Metro Channel in central Kolkata, was announced by TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday.
He had accused the Election Commission of carrying out a “politically motivated” exercise that could disenfranchise lakhs of legitimate voters months ahead of the Assembly elections.
The protest marks a dramatic political escalation by the ruling party just days after the Election Commission published the post-SIR electoral rolls, which have significantly redrawn the contours of the State’s electorate.
According to official data released on February 28, 63.66 lakh names, around 8.3 per cent of the electorate, have been deleted since the SIR process began in November last year, reducing the voter base from about 7.66 crore to just over 7.04 crore.
In addition, over 60.06 lakh electors have been placed under the “under adjudication” category, meaning their eligibility will be determined through legal scrutiny in the coming weeks, a process that could further reshape constituency-level electoral equations.
TMC leaders alleged that minority voters, migrant workers and economically marginalised sections have been disproportionately affected by the deletions.
Abhishek Banerjee had escalated the attack on the Election Commission, alleging that the “target of deleting over one crore voters was decided even before the exercise began”.
He had said the TMC supremo would announce the party’s next line of action from the protest site.
“We are against this Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, in which legitimate voters have been deleted,” he had said.
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Mamata holding sit-in in Kolkata to shield infiltrators: Union minister Giriraj Singh Kolkata, Mar 6 (PTI) Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Friday accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of holding a sit-in in the heart of the city to protect infiltrators belonging to the minority community.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a programme, Singh alleged that the Trinamool Congress Government would soon be voted out of power and warned “partisan State Government officials and lumpens sheltered by the TMC” to mend their ways or face consequences.
“Banerjee is only interested in saving the infiltrators belonging to the Muslim community, which constitutes the bulk of her vote bank. She should be ashamed that she is holding a sit-in protest in the Esplanade area to save infiltrators, with whose help she managed to win the previous elections. But not anymore,” the senior BJP leader said.
He claimed that the Rs 15 lakh-crore central grant given to the State had been gobbled up by TMC functionaries, “who have built palatial homes and changed from cycle to luxury four wheelers in 15 years.”
“From 25 per cent earlier, the industrial growth has come down to three per cent as the children born in the State over the past 15 years have a burden of Rs 80,000 crore on their heads,” he alleged.
Singh, the Union Textiles Minister, said both the CPI(M) and the TMC had encouraged “goondaism” in the State.
“Muscle flexing and intimidation by the TMC will not succeed anymore as the BJP will counter such strong-arm tactics,” he said.
Singh later flagged-off BJP’s Parivartan Yatra at Narayangarh in Paschim Medinipur district.
The rally, consisting of flower-decked trucks draped in saffron colours, was among the nine ‘Parivartan Yatra’ being taken out by the BJP across Bengal from March 1 to 10 as part of a mass outreach programme ahead of the Assembly polls.
