Mamata Banerjee leads protest march against electoral rolls revision
What's the story
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led a massive protest march in Kolkata on Tuesday against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government and the Election Commission of "silent, invisible rigging" through this revision drive. The 3.8-km march started at BR Ambedkar statue on Red Road and ended at Jorasanko Thakur Bari.
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Next destination Delhi
Banerjee was accompanied by her nephew and the party's national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee. At the rally, Abhishek claimed that after the announcement of SIR, many people have lost their lives. "Today, we participated in the protest rally against SIR... BJP must think if we can arrange such a huge gathering in 2 days, what will be our turnout when we go to Delhi for our protest... Now prepare for the next destination, Delhi. We are ready to fight."
Protest claims
TMC blames SIR process for deaths in Bengal
The TMC has alleged that the SIR process has caused three deaths in Bengal due to fear over the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The BJP, however, dismissed these claims. Suvendu Adhikari, Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, called Tuesday's march a "rally of Jamat" and said it went "against the ethos of the Indian Constitution."
Voter roll controversy
BJP accuses TMC of inflating voter rolls
The second phase of SIR began on Tuesday and will end on December 4. The exercise will cover nine states and three Union Territories (UTs), including West Bengal. Abhishek has directed the appointment of booth level agents (BLAs) across all 84,000 booths to monitor every step of the process. In a virtual meeting with TMC leaders, he instructed that BLOs be "kept under constant watch" and that party agents accompany them during fieldwork to prevent "arbitrary deletions."