Mamata Banerjee, who is scheduled to leave for New Delhi on Wednesday, will take her protest against the special intensive revision (SIR) by the allegedly compromised Election Commission under the saffron regime to the national capital.
A major agitation led by the chief minister is likely in New Delhi on Thursday.
Her entourage of hundreds will include 160-odd people from the families of Bengal SIR "victims". The Trinamool Congress believes that over 110 people have died in Bengal for SIR-related reasons, besides dozens battling for their lives. Major logistical arrangements for her Delhi leg of protests are underway for minimal friction given the likely resistance from the BJP-led central and state governments.
"Legal counsel has been taken for quick Supreme Court options if there is too much of anything (non-cooperation) from their (the BJP's) side," said a Trinamool veteran.
Mamata plans to stay in New Delhi for several days, leaving from the Calcutta airport right after her Singur event on Wednesday. She aims to somewhat overshadow the Union budget on February 1 with her anti-SIR activism from the ground there. For this, if need be, the state budget (so far scheduled for next Monday) could be deferred, said party sources.
A Trinamool MP said the 160 relatives of SIR "victims", being accommodated at Delhi's Banga Bhavan, would play a key role in the protests, as Mamata would show the nation how the "opaque, exclusionary, malafide" exercise affected people in Bengal, and how it did not matter to chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar or "his political master", Union home minister Amit Shah.
"Legitimate Indian citizens, electors for decades, have been made to fear deportation to Bangladesh by the saffron regime simply because they are from Bengal and/or speak Bengali," he said.
"This is a crime of extreme ethnolinguistic prejudice against a people by its own Union government, enabled by a supposedly autonomous constitutional custodian of the highest elections of the land. This must make national, global headlines. This is what she firmly believes, and largely what this trip is about," he said.
The MP pointed out that Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, two days after his turbulent New Year's Eve meeting with Kumar and others in the Nirvachan Sadan top brass, had suggested this would happen. "They should be afraid. Irrespective of how this plays out, the only certainty is that she will emerge with the most political advantage in Bengal and nationally," he said.
For Parliament's budget session, most, if not all, MPs of all parties and their top brass are likely to be in the national capital during Mamata's visit.
She is expected to get firm support from several quarters in the non-NDA space, indicative of which was Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's visit to her at Nabanna on Tuesday.
"If anyone in the country is taking on the BJP, it is the respected Mamata Banerjee. The SIR has been brought in only to target Bengal," he said after meeting her. "I congratulate Didi for her courage in responsibly fighting for people," he said. "The (central) agencies are an organisation of the BJP. Maharashtra was entirely won using the ED and the CBI. I am happy that Didi has defeated the ED," he added, referring to Mamata's storming the ED's raid venues of the I-PAC office and its director Pratik Jain's residence on January 8.
Mamata and Akhilesh have famously cordial ties. Akhilesh and his wife, Dimple Yadav, an MP, are in Calcutta for a personal engagement since Monday evening.
"For the first time, it has been seen that the Election Commission and the 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," the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said.
"Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is being harassed on the pretext of SIR. We are confident that people of Bengal have a deep emotional bond with her, and she will stay the chief minister (after the polls this summer).... The BJP is fighting a battle to lose with dignity, but people here will defeat them decisively," he said.
"These people are toying with the secular spirit of our country and the Constitution," Akhilesh said. "Bengal is a cultural unit, not just a political unit. People here listen to Rabindranath Tagore, not songs of hatred. Those who try to divide will not succeed. Those who spread sweetness will triumph."