West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, along with her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, will take to the streets of Kolkata on November 4 to protest against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which is set to begin in the state on that day.
Mamata and Abhishek will march from the B R Ambedkar statue at Red Road to Jorasanko Thakurbari—the residence of Rabindranath Tagore—at around 2 pm. TMC sources said that all party workers have been instructed to gather at Red Road by 1.30 pm on November 4. On the same day, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari will lead a rally in Agarpara in the North 24 Parganas district.
Abhishek, who had initially proposed holding a rally at Esplanade to protest the SIR, held a virtual meeting with TMC leaders on Friday. He urged leaders at all levels to participate in the SIR process and instructed MPs and MLAs to regularly interact with booth level officers in their respective areas. He also directed them to ensure that all enumeration forms were duly filled and that no names were deleted from the voter list.
The TMC leadership has tried to draw a parallel between the SIR and the National Register of Citizens, highlighting a few suicide cases and claiming that the people who took the extreme step were traumatised by NRC/SIR.
The Trinamool Congress leadership has attempted to draw a parallel between the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), highlighting several suicide cases and claiming that those individuals were traumatised by the NRC/SIR process.
TMC complains against Suvendu Adhikari: ‘Conduct…squarely within ambit of criminal intimidation’
The TMC has complained to the office of the West Bengal chief electoral officer, alleging that Suvendu Adhikari, Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, has issued threats to BLOs.
State minister and TMC leader Aroop Biswas wrote in the letter, “On a recent occasion, during an interaction with the press, Suvendu Adhikari, Bharatiya Janata Party MLA and Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, openly threatened Booth Level Officers (BLOs) with imprisonment if they did not follow instructions.”
The letter further stated, “In that address, he explicitly invoked the detention of BLOs in Bihar and warned West Bengal BLOs that ‘you will have to spend time in jail’ and that ‘we will provide information and documents to ensure that you go to jail’… Such language, coming from an elected political leader following the announcement of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, constitutes criminal intimidation of public servants performing statutory duties and represents an explicit attempt to coerce, threaten, and frighten election officials into abandoning their responsibilities.”
He further wrote, “On the face of the evidence, Shri Adhikari’s conduct appears to fall squarely within the ambit of criminal intimidation as defined in Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Further, it engages provisions of the law that protect electoral officials and the electoral process, including the statutory duties and protections afforded to returning/presiding officers and other election functionaries.”