Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will address an anti-SIR rally in Bangaon on November 25. After the rally, Mamata Banerjee will also participate in a protest march in Bangaon in North 24 Parganas district.
This will be the second anti-SIR rally and protest march led by the Chief Minister. The first rally was held in Kolkata on November 4. Trinamool Congress insiders stated that Bongaon was chosen as the venue for the anti-SIR rally and protest march because of the large number of Matua community members in the area. The Trinamool Congress had already begun campaigning that the SIR would lead to the removal of Matua community members from the electoral rolls. The Matuas are a backward-caste Hindu community who have migrated as refugees from neighboring Bangladesh and are settling in various districts of West Bengal that share an international border with Bangladesh.
They are concentrated primarily in Nadia and North 24 Parganas districts. However, the state BJP leadership has assured Matua community members that no one other than illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants who have already registered their names in the voter list need worry about the amendment process.
On Thursday, Mamata Banerjee wrote to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, requesting him to postpone the amendment process. In the letter, he claimed that the way the process has been imposed on election officials and citizens of the state is “unplanned, chaotic and dangerous”.
On the same day, Suvendu Adhikari, Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in the West Bengal Assembly, also wrote to the CEC, protesting the Chief Minister’s letter. In his letter, the Leader of the Opposition claimed that CM Banerjee’s letter to the Chief Election Commissioner was a desperate attempt to sabotage the voter list purification drive through SIR and that the contents of her letter were politically motivated and factually incorrect.
