Bengal SIR row: Mamata alleges BJP using voter deletions to divide state

Kolkata, Mar 7 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday alleged that voter deletions in the post-SIR electoral rolls were aimed at dividing the state.

Addressing a gathering during her demonstration against the alleged arbitrary deletions from the electoral roll in the state, Banerjee accused the BJP of depriving Bengali-speaking people of their voting rights.

The CM continued her protest for the second consecutive day on Saturday, after she spent the night at the sit-in site here.

"Their (Election Commission and BJP) intent is to divide Bengal. The BJP is planning to take away votes by dividing Bengal. They (BJP leaders) are subjecting Bengali-speaking people to harassment in other states and are conspiring to deprive Bengalis of their voting rights," Banerjee alleged at the protest site.

The TMC supremo had begun the demonstration at Metro Channel in central Kolkata on Friday, accusing the Election Commission of conspiring with the BJP to “disenfranchise Bengal voters” ahead of the upcoming assembly elections.

The chief minister stayed overnight at the protest site, surrounded by senior Trinamool Congress leaders, legislators and party workers, turning the busy Esplanade stretch into a makeshift political camp.

Addressing supporters on Friday afternoon, Banerjee alleged that large numbers of genuine voters were being removed from the electoral rolls under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

The CM also reiterated her claim that several voters had been "wrongly marked as dead” and said she would present such individuals before the media and the Election Commission to expose what she described as an "attempt to manipulate the voter list to help the BJP in the upcoming assembly polls".

Senior TMC leaders and state ministers remained present at the venue, while party supporters gathered at the protest site in the morning.

The protest comes just days before the full bench of the Election Commission is scheduled to visit West Bengal, amid rising political tensions over the voter list revision ahead of the assembly polls.

According to official data released on February 28, as many as 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. PTI