West Bengal: Didi starts sit-in, accuses Election Commission of ‘conspiracy’ to delete voters’ names

Kolkata: Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee The sit-in began on Friday, alleging “BJP-Election Commission conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengal voters through electoral roll SIR” and saying the upcoming assembly polls will be a farce if genuine voters are not allowed to cast their votes.In support of her allegation, the TMC chief also called out several people who claimed that their names had been removed from the electoral roll after being marked as “dead”.The protest was organized ahead of a visit by the entire Election Commission, which is scheduled to arrive in Kolkata on Sunday evening and stay in the state till Tuesday to review poll preparations.The election date is likely to be announced after the Election Commission team returns to Delhi.“I will expose the BJP-Election Commission conspiracy to disenfranchise the voters of Bengal,” the chief minister said at the dharna podium at Esplanade. She said she would stay overnight at the protest and declared that “Dharma will continue.”“Many people who were declared dead (on the electoral roll) are still alive. I will bring them to the stage,” Banerjee said. “Look at them. They are sitting here. The BJP and its agents in the EC have breached all limits.”TMC Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee issued a call to “boycott the BJP”. “If six million people can be tried, why can’t the chairman of the prime minister be tried? The prime minister was elected by the votes of these people,” he said.When the curtain rose at the Dana venue around 2 pm, Banerjee sat on the stage, surrounded by the headliners of her party. Trinamool’s RS nominee and former DGP Rajeev Kumar and senior advocate Menaka Guruswamy also made their debuts.Meanwhile, the BJP dismissed the uproar, calling it another “drama” aimed at stalling the “voter roll cleansing”. “This dharna is definitely not for the people of Bengal. This is to ensure that infiltrators remain in the electoral roll,” Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattcharya said at the Parivartan Yatra in Howrah.Union Minister Giriraj Singh, who participated in the West Bank Parivartan Yatra, said the TMC was working to “regularize the citizenship of Muslim infiltrators from Bangladesh”.