3 months ago
1
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee connected Friday (March 6, 2026) began a sit-in present to protestation against the alleged arbitrary deletions from the post-SIR electoral rolls, escalating the TMC’s confrontation with the Election Commission of India (ECI) up of the State Assembly polls.
Launching the dharna astatine Kolkata’s Esplanade Metro Channel, Ms. Banerjee accused the BJP and the ECI of conspiring to “disenfranchise Bengali voters” and vowed to exposure them.
“I volition exposure the BJP-EC conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengali voters,” the TMC supremo said astatine the commencement of the protest.
She besides alleged that respective voters had been wrongly marked arsenic deceased successful the revised electoral rolls. “I volition contiguous those voters who person been declared dormant by the Election Commission astatine this protestation site,” Ms. Banerjee said.
The sit-in, which started astatine 2:15 p.m. successful cardinal Kolkata, was announced earlier by TMC nationalist wide caput Abhishek Banerjee, who had accused the canvass sheet of carrying retired a “politically motivated” workout that could disenfranchise lakhs of morganatic voters.
The protestation marks a crisp governmental escalation by the ruling party, days aft the ECI published the post-SIR electoral rolls, which person importantly altered the contours of the state’s electorate.
According to authoritative information released connected February 28, arsenic galore arsenic 63.66 lakh names — astir 8.3% of the electorate — person been deleted since the SIR process began successful November past year, reducing the elector basal from astir 7.66 crore to conscionable implicit 7.04 crore.
In addition, implicit 60.06 lakh electors person been placed nether the “under adjudication” category, meaning their eligibility volition beryllium determined done ineligible scrutiny successful the coming weeks, a process that could further reshape constituency-level electoral equations.
