After filing her nomination for the Bhawanipore constituency on Wednesday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that she would approach the court regarding the issue of voter deletions, after being in the "under-adjudication" category.
“I am sad since the names of countless people have been deleted. Only 32 lakh names have been retained out of 1.2 crore voters. That, too, because I filed a case in the Supreme Court. Fifty-eight lakh voters have been deleted in the first phase. That chapter is yet to open. Of course, some voters who are duplicates or deceased will be removed,” said the chief minister.
“More than 27 lakh voters, who are currently under adjudication, have yet to be included in the electoral list. I believe they should be granted voting rights. The Supreme Court has also ruled that those under adjudication are genuine voters. Those not yet retained will appeal to the tribunal. What’s the point of keeping the process frozen? We will take the necessary actions,” she added.
Close to 33 lakh names were added to the Special Intensive Revision(SIR) list, while 27 lakh names have been removed from the 60 lakh cases which were under adjudication. Around 60 lakh cases were deleted earlier when the final list was released on February 28, now taking the deletions to around 90 lakhs.
The CM has been vocal against SIR, calling it a conspiracy by the BJP in cahoots with the Election Commission. There have been more than 47,000 deletions of names from her constituency of Bhawanipore, where leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari is the BJP candidate. Adhikari is contesting from Nandigram as well, where he had won against Banerjee by 1,956 votes in the 2021 elections.