About 42K voters served SIR hearing notices in Dinhata, mostly minorities: Trinamool

Cooch Behar: North Bengal Development minister and senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Udayan Guha on Friday accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of conspiring to incite communal unrest in Bengal under the pretext of the SIR, allegedly to create conditions for the imposition of President’s Rule.

Speaking at a Press conference at the TMC party office in Dinhata, Guha launched a sharp attack on CEO Gyanesh Kumar. “Under the guise of SIR, the Election Commission is deliberately trying to provoke communal violence,” he alleged.

The minister claimed that in the name of “logical discrepancy,” notices had been served to nearly 42,000 voters in the Dinhata Assembly Constituency, most of whom belong to minority communities. He alleged that this selective action was intended to fuel unrest and warned that the TMC would launch street protests if the process continued.

According to administrative sources, before the SIR began, the total number of voters across nine Assembly constituencies in Cooch Behar district stood at around 2490000. After the first phase of SIR, the voter count dropped to 2,377,411. In the second phase, the Election Commission reportedly issued fresh notices to nearly four lakh voters, citing discrepancies in electoral data.

Notices have already reached voters in constituencies such as Dinhata, Sitai, and Sitalkuchi. The TMC claims that a large proportion of recipients are from minority communities, triggering resentment in several villages.

Guha further accused the Election Commission of acting at the behest of the BJP, citing earlier remarks by Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari regarding the removal of voters’ names.