March 03 (TSP Bangla) – West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Monday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Election Commission of India were involved in what she called an “inhuman and vindictive conspiracy” to remove large numbers of genuine voters from electoral rolls in her constituency and other areas of Bengal that traditionally support her party.
Banerjee, however, said she was confident of winning the election from her Bhabanipur constituency even if the number of voters there was reduced drastically. She remarked that she would still emerge victorious even if only one voter remained in the constituency.
Targeting the BJP’s campaign in poll-bound Bengal, Banerjee criticised the party’s Parivartan Yatra, saying it would turn into the BJP’s shesh jatra (final journey) and binash jatra (journey of ruin) in the state.
The chief minister had been raising concerns about a possible reduction in voter numbers in Bhabanipur in private discussions for several months, but she voiced the issue publicly for the first time on Monday.
Speaking at a Holi–Dol programme at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata, Banerjee said she was shocked by what she described as attempts to manipulate the electoral rolls through the controversial special intensive revision (SIR) process.
“I am shocked. They are doing inhuman, vindictive work. Cowards fight from behind… that’s what they are. They have deliberately cut names… picked and chosen for exclusion,” she said.
“My Bhabanipur Assembly constituency is small. Yet from there, 60,000 voters are being excluded. But even after that, I say I will win from Bhabanipur, even if just one elector is allowed to remain,” Mamata said.
Even before the start of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had been cautioning her party workers in Bhabanipur that the constituency was allegedly being “filled with outsiders” as part of a plan to reduce the number of voters supporting the All India Trinamool Congress.
Her concerns have gained significance in the context of the Bharatiya Janata Party sharply narrowing the gap with Trinamool in the Bhabanipur Assembly segment during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Kolkata Dakshin. In that election, the BJP reduced Trinamool’s lead by more than 50,000 votes, bringing the margin down to 8,297.
In the September 2021 bypolls, Mamata had won Bhabanipur by a record margin of 58,832 votes, securing nearly 72 per cent of the vote share. “I have faith in the Almighty, I have faith in my mother… in Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains…. I will sit in a dharna (at Esplanade, starting Friday afternoon), everyone will give me moral support,” she said.
Nearly one in every two voters in Bhabanipur is a non-Bengali. The socio-economically diverse constituency has around 80 per cent non-Muslim voters, with large numbers of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains.
About 47,000 electors — nearly a fourth of the electorate — have been left out of the voter list in Bhabanipur. In addition, the names of around 14,154 voters have been placed under the “under adjudication” category.
As of February 28, the total electorate in Bhabanipur stands at 1,59,201.
“After living in India for so many years, we cannot consider ourselves Indian citizens. Do you think this is proper? Is this not an injustice to people? I am not talking about any particular community or religion. Every genuine elector in this country has the moral right to be a voter. But this biased government of India and ECI want to erase people from the voter list with the help of Vanish (CEC Gyanesh) Kumar,” she said.
“The Constitution is in crisis. The democratic rights of the people are in danger. I condemn this. I feel the pain of the sufferers. They are common and marginalised people. They are not at fault. They submitted everything that was asked of them,” she added.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has already held several meetings with party leaders and workers in Bhabanipur, issuing clear instructions to remain vigilant in her Assembly constituency. She urged the rank and file of the All India Trinamool Congress to ensure that the removal of voter names is kept to a minimum and to closely monitor any disproportionate exclusions from wards with sizeable minority or slum-dwelling populations.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party had led in five wards of the constituency — wards 63 (parts of Chowringhee, Taltala, Park Street, Shakespeare Sarani, the Maidan and Hastings), 70 (Jadu Babu’s Bazaar), 71 (Bhowanipore), 72 (Chakraberia, Padmapukur and Bakulbagan), and 74 (Alipore).
Trinamool had led in three wards — 73 (parts of Bhowanipore, Patuapara and Kalighat), 77 (parts of Kidderpore), and 82 (Chetla).
However, in the September 2021 bypoll from Bhabanipur, Banerjee had secured leads in all eight wards for the first time since 2014.
“Across Bengal, 1.2 crore people are going to be deprived of their voting rights. I cannot be at ease knowing this… nobody who cares about Bengal should be, even if they are not victims of this,” she said.
“The Election Commission has worked with bias. Vanish Kumar is making people vanish. Democracy is in danger…. All blame is on the BJP,” she added. “We have been patient. But names have been deliberately removed. I know BJP leaders who have ensured that 10,000 to 30,000 voters were deleted from constituencies where Trinamool has won.”
Abhishek’s 250 call
Earlier in the day, Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of chief minister Mamata Banerjee and widely seen as her political heir, mocked the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Parivartan Yatra and set an ambitious target of more than 250 seats for the All India Trinamool Congress in the 294-member West Bengal Legislative Assembly. He said such a result would keep the BJP’s tally in the state below 50 seats.
Speaking at a party event hours before Banerjee addressed the gathering, the Trinamool MP and the party’s national general secretary said their campaign should aim to secure a fourth consecutive term for his aunt as chief minister by winning over 250 seats.
“You should fight in such a way that the BJP gets fewer than 50 seats. If they (the BJP) get fewer than 50 seats in Bengal, I don’t think they will stay in power in Delhi till 2029,” Abhishek told party workers.
