Abhishek warns of protest with 1L people if even one Bengal voter is dropped under SIR

SEEKS DEBATE IN LS ON HARASSMENT OF BENGALIS IN BJP-RULED STATES

- PRADIP CHATTERJEE

KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary and Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee on Friday warned that if even one voter from Bengal is removed from the rolls under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, he would lead a massive protest with one lakh Bengalis at the Election Commission of India (ECI) office.

He alleged that the ECI is being used by the BJP to deliberately omit genuine voters' names in Bengal.

He said: "I warn those who have sold out ECI, if the names of any voter from Bengal are removed from the list, I will gherao the ECI office with 1 lakh Bengalis. I will not let any discrepancies happen in the voter list. The exercise of SIR takes at least 1-2 years. How will they (ECI) be able to conduct it in only 1-2 months."

He added: "As the people of Bengal voted against the BJP in the past few elections, the BJP has been trying to snatch voting rights of the people here in the name of SIR exercise."