‘Will present those voters declared dead’: Mamata Banerjee begins sit-in protest against EC-BJP ‘conspiracy’ over SIR in Bengal | India News
New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday launched protests against the purported deletion of voter lists through special intensive revision (SIR) in the state, accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Election Commission of “conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengali voters”. He promised to attend those voters who were declared dead by the polling agency.“I will expose the BJP-EC conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengali voters,” he said at the start of the protest.
“I will present those voters, who have been declared dead by the Election Commission, at this protest site,” he added.Official figures released on February 28 showed that around 63.66 lakh names – about 8.3% of the electorate – have been deleted since the SIR exercise began in November last year, bringing the total electorate down to 7.04 crore from around 7.66 crore.Additionally, more than 60.06 lakh voters have been classified as “underqualified”, indicating that their eligibility will be assessed through a legal review in the coming weeks, a process that could further alter electoral dynamics at the constituency level.The sit-in protest, which began in central Kolkata on Friday afternoon, was announced by TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who alleged that the poll panel was conducting a “politically motivated” exercise that could disenfranchise lakhs of genuine voters.BJP’s Amit Malviya slammed the Bengal chief minister for high unemployment in the state, saying the chief minister should have focused on “delivering what he was elected for instead of sitting on dharna”.“West Bengal has an estimated 85 lakh unemployed people in the age group of 18-40, according to official sources from the state government. That unemployment rate under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is 13%, much higher than the national average, which remains in the low single digits. This is entirely the credit of Baneral and the result. The misrule that West Bengal has endured for the last 15 years. If the Chief Minister had focused on delivering what he was elected for instead of sitting on dharna, the situation would not have been so bad. But it’s too late now,” he said in a post on X.
