West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accused her Trinamool Congress’s principal challenger, Bharatiya Janata Party, of resorting to “politics of fear and division” after a man in West Bengal died by suicide, allegedly out of fear of the prospect of a process to have a National Register of Citizens (NRC) for the state, just like neighbouring Assam.
Her heir apparent and the TMC general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, on the other hand, alleged that the Special Intensive Review (SIR) of the electoral rolls was nothing but a “silent invisible rigging”, launched by the Election Commission to disenfranchise the genuine citizens of India, just for the benefit of the BJP. He warned that the TMC would take at least one lakh people from West Bengal to New Delhi to stage a protest demonstration in front of the Nirvacha Sadan, the headquarters of the EC, if the SIR led to the removal of the names of the genuine voters of the state. “If they have the guts, (Union Home Minister) Amit Shah’s Delhi Police may try and stop us.” He also slammed the EC, calling it an organisation affiliated to the BJP.
Abhishek, a TMC member in the Lok Sabha, also dismissed the BJP’s claim that the SIR would lead to the ouster of Mamata Banerjee’s party from power in West Bengal after the assembly elections in the state next year, as the illegal migrants, who crossed over from Bangladesh and Myanmar to India, and somehow managed to make it to the electoral rolls and had been voting for the ruling party, would be struck out during the process.
“We will win more seats than we did in 2021, and the BJP’s tally would come down to 50,” he said, slamming the EC for launching the SIR only in West Bengal, although the India-Bangladesh border ran through four more states, Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura and Mizoram. The state BJP heavyweight and the Leader of Opposition in the legislative assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, claimed that the SIR would cleanse the electoral rolls of the Rohingyas, who allegedly infiltrated from Myanmar and settled in West Bengal and other states in India. Avishek, however, pointed out that the EC had not announced the SIR in the states on the India-Myanmar border.
The TMC had won 215 of the 294 seats in the state assembly in 2021 and retained power. The BJP’s tally, however, had gone up from just three seats in 2016 to 77 in 2021.
A day after the EC announced the launch of the SIR of the Electoral Rolls in 12 States and Union Territories, including West Bengal, the ruling TMC turned the death of 57-year-old Pradeep Kar at Panihati in North 24 Parganas, into a weapon to target the BJP and the government led by the saffron party at the Centre.
Kar left a suicide note blaming the NRC for his death. He had been anxious about the prospects of the process to have an NRC prepared for West Bengal, just as it had happened in Assam, Murli Dhar, the Police Commissioner of Barrackpore, said, after a preliminary investigation into his death.
“This tragic death is the direct consequence of the BJP’s venomous propaganda. Those who sit in Delhi and preach nationalism have pushed ordinary Indians to such despair that they are dying in their own land, fearing they will be declared ‘FOREIGNERS’,” Mamata wrote on X. She alleged that the BJP, for years, had tormented innocent citizens with the threat of the NRC, spreading lies, stoking panic and weaponising insecurity for votes. “They have turned constitutional democracy into a draconian law regime, where people are made to doubt their own right to exist.”
After the EC launched the SIR of the electoral rolls in Bihar, the TMC supremo had called it a “backdoor attempt” to roll out the process to have the NRC across the country.
“Bengal will never allow the NRC and never allow anyone to strip our people of their dignity or belonging. Let the Delhi Zamindars hear this loud and clear: Bengal will resist, Bengal will protect, and Bengal will prevail,” Mamata wrote on X on Tuesday.
“The tragic death of Pradeep Kar must be investigated thoroughly - the cause of suicide can and must be determined only by the law and investigating agencies, not through political rhetoric," Amit Malviya, who oversees the BJP’s campaign in West Bengal, wrote on X, adding: “Let's also get the facts right - there is NO NRC anywhere in the country. Mamata Banerjee is lying and deliberately spreading panic to stoke fear among people for political gain.”