Mamata begins sit-in protest over electoral roll deletions in West Bengal

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday launched a sit-in protest in Kolkata, intensifying her party’s confrontation with the Election Commission over alleged irregularities in the revised electoral rolls ahead of the state assembly elections.

The protest began at around 2.15 pm at Esplanade’s Metro Channel in central Kolkata. Banerjee accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Election Commission of colluding to remove legitimate voters from the rolls and said she would expose what she described as a conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengali voters.

“I will expose the BJP–EC conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengali voters,” the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief said while addressing supporters at the start of the demonstration.

Banerjee also alleged that several individuals had been wrongly listed as deceased in the updated voter rolls. She said that some of those voters would be brought to the protest venue to demonstrate what she called serious errors in the revision process.

The demonstration had earlier been announced by TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who accused the Election Commission of conducting a politically motivated exercise that could deprive lakhs of legitimate voters of their franchise.

The protest comes days after the Election Commission released the post–Special Intensive Revision (SIR) electoral rolls, which have significantly altered the state’s voter database.

According to official figures published on 28 February, around 63.66 lakh names — approximately 8.3 per cent of the electorate — have been removed since the revision process began in November last year. The deletions have reduced the number of registered voters in West Bengal from about 7.66 crore to just over 7.04 crore.

In addition, more than 60.06 lakh electors have been placed in an “under adjudication” category, meaning their eligibility will be examined through legal scrutiny in the coming weeks. Officials say the outcome of this process could further affect constituency-level electoral dynamics ahead of the polls.

With IANS inputs