Cooch Behar, Mar 1: A day after the publication of West Bengal’s post-SIR electoral rolls that saw 63.66 lakh names deleted, BJP national president Nitin Nabin on Sunday claimed that “more than 50 lakh infiltrators” had been removed from the voter list and said “time is up for illegal immigrants” in the state.
Addressing a rally in Cooch Behar while flagging off the party’s ‘Poriborton Yatra’, Nabin alleged that those removed from the electoral rolls were “infiltrators”, who had been availing government jobs and benefits of welfare schemes meant for genuine citizens.
“More than 50 lakh infiltrators have been removed from the voter list. These infiltrators were not only violating the rights of legitimate citizens but also jeopardising the security of the country,” he said.
The BJP chief alleged that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had provided “protection to infiltrators by helping them obtain fake documents”.
“Mamata Banerjee rushed to the courts to protect infiltrators in the voter rolls, as they are her party’s vote bank. But when women face humiliation, you choose to look the other way,” Nabin said, in a sharp attack on the TMC leadership.
He also said, “Our message to the infiltrators is that the time has now come to drive them out from the soil of Bengal. We must not only drive out infiltrators but also establish a decisive government that can usher in development.” Alleging “misrule” by the TMC, Nabin said the state needs to be “freed from the corrupt TMC government, which works only for infiltrators”. “Bengal is yearning for a change. People want a real ‘Poriborton’,” he said.
His remarks came a day after the Election Commission published the post-SIR rolls, marking a sweeping electoral reset barely months before the assembly polls.
According to official data released on Saturday, 63.66 lakh names — around 8.3 per cent of the electorate — have been deleted since the Special Intensive Revision began in November last year, reducing the voter base from 7.66 crore to just over 7.04 crore.
The 116-day statewide exercise – the first intensive revision since 2002 – has also placed over 60.06 lakh electors in the “under adjudication” category, with their eligibility now subject to judicial scrutiny in the coming weeks, a process that could further recalibrate constituency-level equations.
The draft rolls published on December 16 last year had already pared down the electorate from 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore, deleting over 58 lakh names on grounds such as death, migration, duplication and untraceability.
Following hearings and disposal of claims and objections, another 5.46 lakh deletions were recorded through Form-7 applications, taking the total SIR-linked omissions to around 63.66 lakh. (PTI)
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