West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee set to take SIR anger protest to Delhi after Akhilesh Yadav backing

KOLKATA: CM Mamata Banerjee is likely to leave for New Delhi on Wednesday after her Singur rally to take her protests against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll to Nirvachan Sadan and meet senior opposition leaders, who will be in the capital for the budget session of Parliament, sources said.

The CM on Tuesday met Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, who threw his weight behind her saying, “Only Didi (Banerjee) can counter BJP’s onslaught in this country”. Yadav said the SIR had been rolled out “only to target Bengal”.




Banerjee had indicated to her close aides during the Republic Day function at Raj Bhawan on Monday evening that she was keen to leave for Delhi to step up her fight against the SIR. Till now, she has written five letters to chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, expressing her opposition to the way the roll revision is being handled.

Ahead of the CM’s Delhi visit, TMC MPs Sagarika Ghose and Satabdi Roy spoke extensively on the SIR at an all-party meeting convened by the Centre on the eve of the budget session.

Banerjee is also likely to meet her party MPs to spell out their roles in what is likely to be the last Parliament session before the assembly polls in Bengal.

Indicating that Trinamool will take the SIR protests to Parliament, MP Sagarika Ghose told reporters, “We reiterated in the all-party meeting that the ongoing SIR process in Bengal must be discussed on the floor of Parliament during the budget session. The manner in which the SIR exercise is being conducted raises serious questions about the neutrality and transparency of Election Commission, and this deserves discussion.”

She said, “A so-called ‘logical discrepancy list’ has been prepared, containing the names of around 1.5 crore people, and this, too, must be debated. More than 130 people have reportedly lost their lives during the SIR exercise, and this issue must also be discussed in Parliament. The misuse of central agencies in poll-bound states, including the filing of ED cases, must also be taken up for discussion. All opposition parties stressed in the all-party meeting that Parliament is not a one-way street.”

As Ghose spoke in Delhi, Samajwadi Party chief Yadav, who had flown in with wife Dimple Yadav to Kolkata on Monday, spoke out strongly against the SIR. After visiting the Kalighat temple, Yadav drove to Nabanna, where he met the CM for around 40 minutes. With Banerjee by his side, Yadav said, “For the first time, it is being seen that EC and BJP are carrying out NRC in the name of SIR. Their objective is to delete as many voters as possible. Many people were forced to prove their citizenship.”

Referring to EC and BJP, the former Uttar Pradesh CM said, “These people are playing with secularism. In UP, more voters have been deleted than in Bengal.”

Congratulating Banerjee for her “courage” in fighting for the people, Yadav said, “The (central) agencies are BJP’s organisations. The entire Maharashtra was won using ED and CBI. I am happy that Didi has defeated ED. The people of Bengal have a deep emotional bond with their chief minister and Didi will become CM again. BJP is fighting a battle to lose with dignity, but the people here will defeat them decisively.”

Also on Tuesday, a five-member Trinamool delegation — made up of MPs Mahua Moitra, Dola Sen, Partha Bhowmik and Bapi Haldar; and state forest minister Birbaha Hansda — met Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal and questioned the “extra-legal” appointment of micro-observers and the power vested in them by EC to delete names from the voters’ list. “There are no statutory provisions for (appointment of) micro-observers. Yet, DEOs (district election officers) are being told by WhatsApp to share EC login ID passwords with them,” Moitra said.

(Written with agency inputs from New Delhi)