KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Saturday vowed to continue her crusade against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, alleging that voter deletions were targeting “particularly one community,” just 20 hours after criticising the BJP and the Election Commission of India (ECI).
She came down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of orchestrating the deletion of voters from the post-SIR electoral rolls.
Addressing thousands of worshippers after Eid prayers at Kolkata’s Red Road, Mamata Banerjee, alongside Abhishek Banerjee, national general secretary of the party, said, “The fight we started against the SIR will be continued. The large-scale deletions of voters’ names were part of broader attempts to influence the electoral process in the state.”
Mamata has been protesting against the SIR of electoral rolls since the exercise was launched in the state on November 4 last year and has intensified her attacks on the BJP-led government at the Centre and the ECI through rallies and programmes ahead of the assembly polls, which she is expected to face for the first time since 2011 when the Trinamool Congress-led government came to power in Bengal.
“Large numbers of voter names have been removed in the name of the SIR. I am fighting against this and have even moved the court. Our fight against the exercise will remain unabated to protect democracy and the rights of every citizen. We won’t allow Modiji to snatch away people’s voting rights,” she said at the Red Road gathering.
“He doesn’t mind about Hindu-Muslim when he shakes hands and hugs them during his visits to Saudi Arabia and Dubai. He only becomes proactive about deleting voters after returning to the country. But it is true that everyone is a friend of India—whoever it may be, Dubai or Saudi Arabia,” she added.
“BJP is a party of hooligans and dacoits. Those targeting Bengal will go to hell,” she said, making blistering attacks on the saffron party during her address.
Her remarks come amid an intensifying political row over the electoral roll scrutiny exercise, which the TMC has repeatedly described as an attempt to remove names of genuine voters, particularly from minority-dominated areas, ahead of the assembly polls.
The chief minister also invoked Bengal’s long tradition of communal harmony, saying the state would not allow forces trying to polarise society to succeed.
“Bengal believes in unity. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians — everyone lives together here. We will not allow anyone to break this social fabric,” she said.
The annual Eid congregation at Red Road, one of the largest in eastern India, has often doubled as a political platform during election years, offering parties an opportunity to reach out to the state’s sizeable Muslim electorate, which constitutes around 30 per cent of the population.
Promising to protect people’s welfare and position Bengal as an economic hub in the Trinamool Congress election manifesto, Mamata on Friday escalated her attack on the BJP and the ECI over the SIR exercise, alleging that voter deletions were targeting “particularly one community.”
She claimed that a “declared President’s Rule” was effectively being imposed in the state through the BJP’s actions.
Banerjee, alongside Abhishek, said, “The supplementary SIR list of voters marked as ‘under adjudication’ has not yet been published today. So far, 22 lakh out of 60 lakh adjudicated cases have been disposed of in the state. Ten lakh voters out of these 22 lakh have been rejected. They are mostly from Malda, Murshidabad, and North Dinajpur districts.” These districts are minority-dominated with solid vote banks for the Trinamool.
“This is being done targeting particularly one community. Names of Hindu voters, Rajvansis, and the Matua community have also been deleted during the SIR process. Words like ‘logical discrepancy’ have no meaning, I think,” she said.
“We have no words to condemn them and have gone everywhere—from the roads to the courts—to fight against the SIR process. First, they deleted 58 lakh voters and then another 60 lakh. It takes 15 to 20 days to dispose of 22 lakh cases out of the 60 lakh. Will it be possible to resolve the remaining issues within this period before the elections? They (BJP) had announced from their party office that more than one crore voters would be removed from the list,” she added.