Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the BJP and the Election Commission of India (ECI) for augmenting people’s miseries through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, warning the saffron outfits’ actions would soon bring about their downfall in Delhi.
The Chief Minister who looked like scoring a huge electoral point over rival BJP — apparently by exploiting the general popular anguish — led a massive anti-SIR rally in Kolkata that boasted of a longer tail than the one led by Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari some 25 km away at Panihati in North 24 Parganas said “people of India do not want SIR they will overthrow the BJP Government in Delhi if the name of a single voter is deleted from the voters’ lists.”
Though she would not mention any name in the Union Cabinet or the Chief Election Commissioner, she referred to one “Mir Zafar (traitor) and a Kursi Babu (Mr Chair)” who had “colluded to erase the names of the voters from the opposition-ruled States,” adding she would let their plans be a success in Bengal.
“In Bihar they had failed to catch the dirty designs of the Mir Zafar and Kursi Babu but in Bengal we have caught it and foil their designs,” Banerjee said alleging that the ECI had “very cunningly left alone Assam a double-engine State (ruled by the BJP) from the SIR list but has included Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu though all the four states are going to polls in a few months from now,” and asking “is it not a conspiracy being hatched to help the ruling party.
“Mocking Kursi Babu (a top ECI official) — who “with the help of Mir Zafar got his close relatives posted as DM and SPs in priced locations,” — the Chief Minister said “while in 2002 it took more than two years to get the SIR done, they are doing it in a month’s time,” asking “why this hurry is it only to please Godi Babu and Mir Zafar.”
Demanding to know the success of SIR in Bihar, she referred to the BJP’s allegations that Rohingyas and Bangladeshis had flooded Bengal and had changed the demography of the State, and wondered “how many Rohingyas and Bangladeshis have they been able to catch in Bihar.
“The BJP was after Bengalis because they had never voted for it, she said. “They have been repeatedly defeated in Bengal in 2021, 2024 so they have devised this new plan to delete the names of the voters to win the elections but our men are keeping a constant watch on them,” Banerjee said once again playing on the Bengali asmita (pride) adding “so much for speaking Bengali they should know that not all who speak in Bengali are Bangladeshis like all those who speak in Hindi, Urdu or Punjabi are Pakistanis.
“Holding the recent “anxiety deaths” and “suicides related to SIR” in Bengal, the Chief Minister said, “they have already taken 7-8 lives by frightening people on SIR, like during Note Bandi (demonetisation), they had taken more than 100 lives who died while standing in the long queues and during the NRC hype.”
Banerjee’s allegations came when yet another person, called Mohan Sheikh, committed suicide at Kandi in Murshidabad district.
His family members said that he was anxious about his name not appearing in the 2002 electoral rolls, though he had voted in that year. He feared being pushed back to Bangladesh, sources said.
Tuesday’s death took the toll to eight in the past week. Elsewhere, Adhikari too led an impressive rally in the Panihati area of North 24 Parganas, alleging the Trinamool Congress was creating a misconception about SIR and the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Saying that the TMC had no way but to let the SIR be conducted, he said, “if the SIR is conducted by January and voters’ list is not published by February and elections are not held by April-May then there will be Presidents’ Rule where will they go then so there is no way but they will have to let SIR be conducted.”
He said that the TMC was “unnecessarily creating a panic among the people regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act, while more than 50,000 people have applied for citizenship through CAA.”
