Mamata Banerjee vows to protect voter names in West Bengal amid Special Intensive Revision concerns

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday she will not allow the deletion of a single-family name from the West Bengal voters’ list if the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) begins in the state. Banerjee said she will organise protests if names are deleted and will not allow “Bihar-like deletion of names”.

“If 40 lakh people are removed from the Bihar list and similar things happen here, we will protest. If SIR happens in Bengal, I will not allow the deletion of a single name. We will protest against it and ramp up the protest to a big scale,” Mamata Banerjee said during the commemoration of Martyr’s Day in Kolkata.

“Since 1993, we have been observing this day for Shahid Tarpan (commemorating martyrs) and as ‘Maa-Mati-Manush Diwas’ and Save Democracy Day. ‘No ID, No Vote’ was our movement. Had it not taken place, you would not have received the voter ID card. At least 13 people had died on that day. We had to struggle a lot to reach this position. This struggle will continue unless we oust the BJP at the Centre. It will only end when we bring about a “parivartan” in Delhi,” Banerjee said, talking about the significance of Martyr’s Day today.


She, however, spoke about starting another movement against the ECI, if names are deleted in the name of SIR. She said a notification has been sent to her on the appointment of a nodal officer, who will be instrumental in deleting names from the voters’ list. “Why will they tell us about appointing a nodal officer? Stopping infiltration is BSF’s work. How many people are you going to put in jail? BJP speaks against Emergency, whereas they have imposed ‘Super Emergency’ in the country,” she said.

Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said: “The BJP and the Election Commission are conspiring against West Bengal. They want to do in West Bengal what they did in Bihar through SIR. If they try the same here, we will gherao them. We will never allow it," he said