Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday slammed the BJP Government for imposing a “super emergency” in the garb of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and said it had been intentionally done to delete genuine names from voters’ lists to defeat the Trinamool Congress in the next year’s Assembly elections.
Dubbing the ongoing SIR “vote bandi much like the note bandi (demonetisation) that was imposed on the nation without any result and took many lives,” Banerjee said, “it should be stopped immediately.”
Banerjee’s statement came on a day when two TMC MPs, Dola Sen and Mala Roy on Monday filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the SIR. The Chief Minister, who was presently touring North Bengal, said, “This is another type of super emergency that the BJP Government has slapped on the people by forcing the Election Commission to implement it, but this process cannot be completed in a matter of two months.” The hearing is likely to take place on Tuesday.
The ECI had pulled out a large number of State Government officials who were “unable to complete their duties and this has impeded the development works of the State. This has been done intentionally so that the State Government cannot do its work as the SIR process will continue till February and thereafter elections will be declared. This is a big conspiracy hatched by the BJP after they have repeatedly failed to defeat the TMC in elections.”
Attacking Union Home Minister Amit Shah for failing to check infiltration, she said, “He (Shah) should resign because it is his duty to control infiltration.” Banerjee was reacting to a previous statement by the Home Minister who in a meeting in Bihar, said that it was time for people to choose between “trade corridor” and “infiltration corridor.”
Banerjee also attacked the Centre for “trying to starve Bengal by withholding our funds,” saying “for the past four years they have not cleared the State’s MNREGA funds and funds for housing and rural road construction schemes and though they take away the Goods and Services Tax from the State.”
Calling GST a “blunder” that should be rolled back Banerjee said the Centre was looting the people in the name of GST.
