Kolkata, Jul 21 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday sharpened her attack on the BJP and the Election Commission ahead of the 2026 assembly polls, accusing them of hatching a conspiracy to systematically delete names of legitimate voters, particularly minorities and migrants, from the electoral rolls in the state.
Speaking at the Trinamool Congress’ annual Martyrs’ Day rally at Esplanade, Banerjee indicated the “real battle” for 2026 would be over the voter list and not just at the ballot box, and urged party workers to stay alert against what she called attempts to carry out a “silent purge” of Bengali-speaking voters.
“They can remove names from the electoral roll till the day of nomination. I am telling our organisation, don’t let a single name be struck off,” she said, waving a stack of papers in her hand.
“In Bihar, they deleted over 40 lakh names. Now they will try the same here. We won’t allow this conspiracy,” the TMC supremo said.
Accusing the BJP of engineering similar deletions in Bihar through a mechanism called SIR, Banerjee warned that Bengal would not allow such “tampering”.
“The BJP and the Election Commission are conspiring against Bengal. If they try to do here what they did in Bihar, we will gherao them,” she said.
Banerjee also cited Maharashtra as an example of how voter lists could allegedly be manipulated to engineer electoral outcomes.
“Just like they did it in Maharashtra, they are trying to do it in Bihar, and now they will attempt to do it in Bengal,” she alleged.
Her remarks come in the wake of allegations by the Congress that the Maharashtra Assembly elections held last year were “rigged” despite the INDIA bloc winning a majority of Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2024 general elections.
According to the Congress, one crore additional voters were added to the rolls before the Assembly polls, leading to a 10 per cent spike in voter turnout.
The Election Commission has denied the charges, saying elections are conducted strictly under laws passed by Parliament.
Without naming BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, Banerjee also rebutted claims that 17 lakh Rohingyas were living in Bengal.
“UN data says there are only about 10-13 lakh Rohingyas globally. Where did this 17 lakh figure come from?” she asked, accusing the saffron party of manufacturing numbers to target Muslims, especially Bengali-speaking ones.
Urging her party cadre to be proactive, Banerjee said, “Our workers should be very cautious about attempts to erase names of legitimate voters of Bengal and include people from other BJP-ruled states into our voter list.” PTI PNT NN
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.