Kolkata: CM Mamata Banerjee is set to take to the streets again to protest the mass “deletion of voters” following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of poll rolls. Her Friday protest comes 48 hours before an Election Commission full bench is scheduled to reach Kolkata to take stock of the state’s poll preparedness.The construction of the stage began two days ago. As preparations continued in full swing, Trinamool workers inspected the grounds. The protest will begin at 2 pm, though gatherings will start at 11 am. PWD officials and police officers inspected the site on Thursday morning with a sniffer dog. Workers painted railings on the median divider blue during the afternoon.TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee announced the sit-in on Sunday. He accused the Election Commission of a politically motivated exercise to disenfranchise voters before the assembly elections. “She will announce our action from the venue. We oppose this SIR,” he said.For Mamata, returning to the streets mirrors the political style that defined her career. Before becoming CM in 2011, the Metro Channel served as the stage for her challenges against the Left Front. On Dec 4, 2006, she began her 26-day fast there over the Tata Motors small car project. That agitation became a milestone that subsequently ended 34 years of the Left government.Since 2011, Mamata has occasionally resumed this role. In Feb 2019, she held a dharna after the CBI sought to question the Kolkata Police commissioner. In 2024, she protested on Red Road against the withholding of central funds.For TMC faithfuls who reached the protest site a day before, the similarities of her protest with her 26-day hunger strike at Esplanade’s Metro Channel to stop the acquisition of 1,000 acres of land by Tata Motors in Singur, were hard to miss.Zakir Karikar from Murshidabad, whose association with Trinamool began during the Singur movement, reached the city on Thursday to monitor preparations for the dharna. “I joined the protest the day Didi launched her hunger strike. The Singur movement protected land. But this issue is larger because citizens, especially from the minority community, face harassment and loss of voting rights,” he said.Sanjay Chakraborty, a TMC worker and booth level agent (BLA) since 1998, called this the “second movement” for human rights after Singur. “I was at Metro Channel when the party in office attempted to take farmers’ land. As a BLA, I see how voters are deleted or marked under adjudication. We want the EC to review these decisions,” he said.Observers say that by leading the protest, the CM will signal that voter rolls will be a central issue for Trinamool heading into the April assembly polls.(Written with PTI inputs)
