Kolkata: A day before she is scheduled to start a protest over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll at Metro Channel, Trinamool Congress supremo and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday attacked the BJP over large-scale “deletions” of voters in Matua-dominated areas.
On the death anniversary of Matua Mahasangha matriarch Binapani Devi, she alleged that the BJP pushes the Matuas into a volatile situation and a political game is being played in the name of giving citizenship.
“The BJP government at the centre has pushed the Matua brothers and sisters into a volatile and confusing situation. Politics is being played in the name of giving citizenship. Their identity is being questioned. SIR is deliberately excluding them from the voter list,” Banerjee in a post on X said.
She further alleged that those who are hereditary citizens of this country, by whose votes the government is elected, are now being put in the face of uncertainty in the name of giving them a new ‘citizenship’.
Making an assertion that she will not tolerate this, Banerjee said: “We will not accept this injustice. Our struggle will continue against the ongoing attempt to take away the rights of the people of Bengal, including my Matua siblings… This is my pledge on this special day.”
The highest number of deletions (16,491) in the second phase, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI), took place in Dabgram-Fulbari assembly constituency under Darjeeling district. It was followed by Bagda assembly constituency in the North 24-Parganas, where 15,303 voter deletions were recorded. Kalyani Assembly constituency of Nadia district took the third position with 9,037 voter deletions. The constituencies which have seen the deletion of names in large scale in the final list have a sizable number of Matua voters.
A senior ECI official said: “In the second phase, mostly those who did not appear in the hearing were deleted. This means these electors were not confident to produce proper documents, and that is why they skipped the hearing.”
According to the ECI, the names of 63,66,952 voters have been deleted under the SIR process in Bengal. Of this, 5,46,053 names were deleted during the second phase. The ECI also informed that 60,06,675 voters are ‘under adjudication’ in the state. Around 1,82,036 voters were added under Form 6, and 6A and around 6,671 voters were added to the list under Form 8, taking the total number of voters to 7,04,59,284 in the state.
Banerjee, in her social media post, stated that those who have been enjoying the citizenship generation after generation are facing uncertainties. “There has been an attempt to snatch the rights of Matuas. I am taking a vow that I will not allow you to snatch citizenship rights of Matus,” Banerjee stated.