Mamata Banerjee Leads Massive Kolkata March Protesting SIR; BJP Counters with Rival Rally on City Outskirts

New Delhi (India) November 4: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday hit the streets in Kolkata, leading a protest march against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Her party, the Trinamool Congress, has accused his government of overseeing a silent and invisible rigging alongside the central government led by his B.J.P. party and Election Commission.

TMC’s Rally in Kolkata

Banerjee, with her nephew and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, walked at the head of thousands of supporters through some of the city’s main arteries. The 3.8-km march began from the statue of BR Ambedkar on Red Road and was scheduled to culminate at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, the ancestral home of Rabindranath Tagore.

The roads on the way were chock-a-block with TMC workers and supporters brandishing party flags, shouting slogans, holding aloft colourful placards against SIR.

In her white cotton saree and slippers, the chief minister led the march as a large number of people lined up to see her with some hanging out from their balconies or lining both sides of the road greeted and waved at by those standing outside.

BJP’s Counterattack

The B.J.P., in turn, responded with the same zeal. The Leader of Opposition of the state and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari held a counter-rally on the outskirts of Kolkata, insisting that TMC’s stand against SIR was “unconstitutional”. Every Bangladeshi infiltrator will be pushed out of the country and the SIR be implemented in full, he said.

He challenged the TMC to try and prevent SIR exercise in West Bengal where polls are scheduled by March next year. All put together, the SIR – which was recently held in Bihar – has kicked off in 12 states and UTs so far.

Adhikari also mentioned one of the TMC's suicide cases - which it has attributed to SIRs- said to have happened in Panihati's Agarpara. The TMC is trying to put this death as the handiwork of SIR operation which is wrong and it is an effort to derail the process, he added.

Rising Tensions

The protest comes on a day when the second phase of the SIR exercise has been launched in 12 States and Union Territories, including West Bengal.

The SIR is a door-to-door visit of the electoral rolls by booth-level officers to verify the details and delete duplications, deaths, immigration or illegal voters. The most recent such military drill was held 20 years ago.

But opposition parties claim the action is being used selectively to erase names from marginalised communities which tend to support them. The SIR Phase1 in Bihar had created widespread controversy as the final roll which was published saw over 68 lakh deletions.

The issue had gone to the Supreme Court which permitted the test to go ahead with some changes.

The political row is likely to escalate from here on with the Trinamool Congress now taking this battle to Bengal’s streets.