Amid indications that the Election Commission of India’s notification for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal will be released soon, the Trinamool Congress has decided to go all out against the exercise with a mega rally in Kolkata, soon after the ongoing festive season concludes with Kali Puja, Diwali, and Bhai Phonta (Bhai Dooj).
Sources in the Trinamool Congress said that the proposed mega anti-SIR rally in Kolkata is likely to be held in the first week of November. The main speakers at the event will be West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and party general secretary and Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee.
“At the rally, both the Chief Minister and the party’s general secretary are expected to present the blueprint for how anti-SIR movements will be carried out in different parts of the state over the next few months. The Chief Minister is also expected to outline the Trinamool Congress’s arguments against the SIR,” said a state cabinet member who declined to be named.
The Trinamool Congress leadership has already begun questioning how top state BJP leaders, including the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, and Union Minister of State Santanu Thakur, are predicting the number of voters whose names would be deleted after the SIR is completed, even before the formal notification for the exercise has been released.
Earlier, the Chief Minister had stated that she would not tolerate the deletion of voters’ names belonging to any particular community from the electoral rolls after the SIR.
Several Trinamool Congress leaders, including some elected representatives and state cabinet members, have warned that “West Bengal will be on the boil if the name of a single genuine voter is deleted from the list.”
The Trinamool Congress has described the SIR as a “ploy” by the BJP and the Union government to “impose NRC” in West Bengal. On the other hand, the BJP has claimed that the Chief Minister is opposing the SIR to ensure that the names of Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators remain on the voters’ list.
