Mamata begins sit-in protest over SIR

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee on Friday began a sit-in protest against alleged voter roll deletions during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Election Commission (EC) of conspiring to “disenfranchise Bengali voters”.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

"I will expose the BJP-EC conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengali voters," Banerjee said at the start of the protest. She alleged that several voters had been wrongly marked as deceased in the revised electoral rolls and said they would be presented at the venue.

The sit-in, which began at 2.15 pm in central Kolkata, was announced earlier by TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. He accused the poll panel of conducting a “politically motivated” exercise that could disenfranchise lakhs of legitimate voters.