Mamata Banerjee on Thursday claimed that more than half of the people whose deaths were linked to the Special Intensive Revision of the voter list were Hindus and warned the BJP against cutting the very branch it was seated on.

The Bengal chief minister, addressing a rally in Muslim-majority Murshidabad district, accused the BJP of trying to queer the electoral pitch with the SIR.

“The religion-based politics over the SIR... misinformation added to the mix, is the BJP’s foul stratagem for the election. More than half of all the people who have died already in SIR-related incidents were Hindus. BJP, don’t cut down the very branch that seats you,” said Mamata.

She was referring to a fear that was steadily deepening roots in sections of the saffron leadership. Certain BJP leaders apprehend that the SIR was backfiring on the party in Bengal, as vast sections of Hindus who had voted for them in recent elections were inconvenienced by the exercise.

The Trinamool Congress chief has been unrelenting for months in her attacks on the saffron regime over the “backdoor NRC (National Register of Citizens)” in the form of the SIR, which she says is a “conspiracy to disenfranchise” the poor and the marginalised, who she believes are unlikely to vote for the BJP.

“As it is, she has a likely headstart of 110-120 seats (of 294 in the Assembly) because of backing from minorities. If we have shot ourselves in the foot with the SIR, thereby displeasing Hindus, where will we stand in the herculean task of winning 148 (the majority mark) from the remaining 165-170 seats?” asked a state BJP leader who didn’t want to be named.

Many like him have expressed apprehensions in private over the electoral outcome of Mamata’s call for a major, popular uprising in the election next summer against the SIR, linked to the wider, emotive issue of the alleged othering and politically motivated marginalisation of the Bengali identity and the Bengal ethos. Some have even admitted to losing sleep over her confidence in the SIR torpedoing the BJP instead.

“In the name of the SIR, the BJP is trying to establish a detention camp in Bengal. No detention camp will be established in Bengal,” Mamata said.

“The BJP wants to drive out minorities, Matuas, and Rajbanshis. Among those who died because of the SIR are mostly Hindus. The SIR has taken whatever was left of the BJP,” added Mamata. “All those forced to come back because of persecution elsewhere (in India) for being Bengali, I respect them. They are all Indians, which is why NRC, SIR, detention camps will not happen in Bengal.”