TMC MPs protest over SIR exercise in Bihar, slam BJP

New Delhi: Trinamool Congress MPs on Tuesday staged a protest in Parliament complex over the voter roll revision in Bihar. TMC MPs Derek O'Brien, Saket Gokhale, Ritabrata Banerjee and Mahua Moitra protested at the Makar Dwar of Parliament and raised slogans like "vote chori band karo' (stop vote theft). They were joined by CPI(ML) Liberation MP Sudama Prasad.

The party said their protest is against the Election Commission, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar and "vote loot". Later, some TMC MPs also joined a protest by MPs from INDIA bloc parties against SIR. In a post on X, the TMC said, "The message from Parliament is loud and clear: Stop vote loot!" "Joined by INDIA bloc MPs, our MPs staged a fierce protest against ECI's Special Intensive Revision drive in Bihar," they said. "SIR is BJP's two-faced weapon to arbitrarily delete genuine voters to give themselves an unfair electoral advantage, and conduct backdoor NRC using voter verification as a cover for a de facto citizenship test. BJP's obsession with voter suppression and identity-based exclusion knows no bound," it charged. "We will resist this subversion of democracy inside Parliament and out on the streets," they said.

Opposition parties have opposed the exercise which is being held to prepare a fresh voter's list for Bihar ahead of assembly polls, and have called it an exclusionary exercise. Terming it as 'votebandi', a move which would lead to disenfranchisement of many, the opposition parties have demanded a debate on the issue in Parliament. Both Houses of Parliament saw a near washout in the first week of the Monsoon Session amid opposition's demand for a debate on the issue.