West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday began a sit-in protest in Kolkata against what she described as arbitrary deletions from the revised electoral rolls, intensifying the Trinamool Congress’s confrontation with the Election Commission ahead of the upcoming state assembly elections.
Launching the dharna at the Esplanade Metro Channel in central Kolkata, Banerjee accused the BJP and the Election Commission of conspiring to disenfranchise Bengali voters. “I will expose the BJP–EC conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengali voters,” the TMC chief said while addressing supporters at the protest site.
She also alleged that several voters had been wrongly marked as deceased in the updated rolls and claimed that those individuals would be presented at the protest to demonstrate the alleged irregularities. “I will bring those voters whom the Election Commission has declared dead and present them here,” Banerjee said.
The sit-in, which began at around 2.15 pm, was earlier announced by TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. He had accused the Election Commission of carrying out a “politically motivated” revision exercise that could potentially deprive lakhs of legitimate voters of their voting rights.
The protest comes days after the Election Commission released the post-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) electoral rolls, which have significantly altered the state’s voter database. According to official figures issued on February 28, around 63.66 lakh names—about 8.3 per cent of the electorate—have been removed since the revision process began in November last year. As a result, the voter base has declined from approximately 7.66 crore to just over 7.04 crore.
Additionally, more than 60.06 lakh voters have been placed in the “under adjudication” category, meaning their eligibility will be determined through legal scrutiny in the coming weeks. The process could further influence constituency-level electoral equations in the run-up to the state polls.
