Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee, the Trinamool top two, will hit Calcutta’s streets on Tuesday in protest against the special intensive revision of electoral rolls, coinciding with the start of the enumeration process in Bengal.
Trinamool sources said the march was a key political programme for the party, which has branded the SIR a “backdoor NRC” and will be using it as ammunition against the BJP ahead of next year’s Assembly elections.
“Our national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, has already said he will be on the streets during the entire SIR process,” a Trinamool leader in Calcutta said.
“Tuesday’s march by Mamata will kick off the project of reaching out to the people and exposing the BJP’s ploy behind the SIR — that of disenfranchising genuine voters. Our role is to protect the bona fide voters.”
The march will begin at 2pm from the statue of B.R. Ambedkar on Red Road and end at Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral home in Jorasanko, a little over 4km away. Trinamool leaders and workers from Calcutta and adjoining districts are expected to participate.
TMC leaders headed by New Barrackpore Municipality chaiman Prabir Saha (in white kurta) distributing photocopy of 2002 electoral roll at the doorstep of the voters
At a virtual meeting on Friday, Abhishek had told the party ranks that all of them must be on the ground, helping run the camps set up by Trinamool to help people fill in the enumeration forms.
“The SIR has already become an election before the Assembly elections next year,” political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty said.
“The Trinamool Congress has rightly taken up the issue and drawn up a mega programme. The SIR will not be hassle-free in Bengal, unlike Bihar.”
He added: “The BJP should understand the politics and come out with more effective steps on the ground, as Trinamool is capitalising on the fear among the people over
the SIR.”
Trinamool has issued a whip to its district leaders to ensure that every voter featured in the latest electoral rolls fills in the enumeration forms.
In many districts, the party has begun distributing photocopies of extracts of the 2002 electoral rolls among households so they can show it as a reference to the Election Commission-appointed booth-level officers who visit their homes, starting November 4.
“We have already printed different pages of the 2002 electoral rolls and are distributing them door to door,” said Prabir Saha, chairman of the Trinamool-run New Barrackpore Municipality in North 24-Parganas.
“We have informed people to show the document to the BLOs and, if they face any problems, immediately contact us or the assistance camps that will open fromNovember 4.”
Trinamool will open over 6,000 camps and war rooms during the SIR process, all of which will become operational from November 4.
Mamata’s party, which had earlier threatened it would not allow the SIR to be conducted, is now using the Election Commission exercise as an opportunity for a voter outreach involving its grassroots workers.
Back-to-back suicides — allegedly prompted by fear of the SIR — in Panihati (North 24-Parganas) and Illambazar (Birbhum), have paved the way for Trinamool to turn the public panic into a weapon against the BJP.
The BJP has thrown its weight behind the SIR, claiming it will weed out up to 1 crore bogus voters — illegal immigrants, dead voters and shifted voters.
The party believes that if the SIR is conducted correctly, it will spell doom for Trinamool in next year’s elections, as only around 42 lakh votes separated the two parties in Bengal during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
To win over more Hindu voters, the BJP is claiming that the SIR will delete the names of Rohingyas and Bangladeshi Muslims from the voter list.
On Saturday, the BJP said it wasn’t bothered by Trinamool’s protest programme and argued that it was the Election Commission’s duty to cleanse the electoral rolls of illegal entries.
“Regarding the SIR and the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), we have a one-point agenda: Detect and delete the names of illegitimate voters and infiltrators,” state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said at the inauguration of the party’s youth outreach drive, NaMo Youth Warrior.
Under this initiative, the BJP will reach out to youths, asking them to register themselves with the party by sending a missed call to a dedicated phone number.