West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday claimed that three to four people are committing suicide every day in the state due to anxiety over the ongoing SIR exercise.
Addressing an event at Red Road in Kolkata to mark the birth anniversary of Subhash Chandra Bose, Banerjee stressed that the Election Commission and the Central government should take responsibility for these deaths.
The Chief Minister said, “More than 110 people have died so far; three to four people are committing suicide every day due to the stress of SIR. 40 to 45 more people are fighting for life in hospitals. After so many years, do we have to prove that we are citizens of this country?”
Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists is underway in the state ahead of the upcoming assembly elections.
Banerjee also accused the BJP of hatching a conspiracy against Bengal and claimed that the country’s great personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Bose, BR Ambedkar and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar were being insulted.
He alleged, “We are seeing that efforts are being made to distort the history of India. Insults, intolerance, ingratitude towards them and denigration of the language; all these are going to come before us.”
He accused the BJP-led government at the Center of abolishing the Planning Commission conceived by Subhash Chandra Bose and setting up NITI Aayog in its place.
Banerjee also said that it was unfortunate that Bose’s birthday had not yet been declared a national holiday.
He said the dreams of the country’s eminent personalities are being “broken into pieces”, and alleged that the version of history fabricated by the saffron brigade has been imposed on the people.
TMC supremo Banerjee said, “This has no connection with the history of the country.”
“People’s rights are being taken away and democracy is being crushed,” he asked sarcastically, adding that if Bose had been alive would he have been called for SIR hearing in the name of logical fallacy and “interrogated about his Indian citizenship”.
He claimed that 1.38 crore people have been summoned for SIR hearing by the Election Commission over logical discrepancy and said that 58 lakh names have already been removed from the draft voter list.
“The total number is two crore,” the Chief Minister stressed.
Banerjee alleged that the top BJP leadership used teleprompters to speak a few words in Bengali during their speeches before the elections and by doing so “insulted the intellectuals of Bengal”.
Noting that Bengali people spell their surnames in different ways, and giving his own example of his surname being spelled both Banerjee and Bandopadhyay, Banerjee wondered “why SIR practitioners don’t know this”.
“Due to such discrepancies, notices have been issued to 1.38 crore people,” he said.
The Chief Minister also claimed that elderly people were called for the hearing of the SIR, and questioned why a notice in this regard was sent to eminent economist Amartya Sen.
“Now they (BJP) will decide whether children will be born or not; they are already deciding what people will eat and what they will not eat,” he alleged.
Emphasizing that humanity today has to fight against inhumanity, “we are fighting against the Kauravas”, he said, comparing it with the struggle between good and evil in the epic Mahabharata.
Referring to Bose’s famous slogan ‘Dilli Chalo’, Banerjee said it should be raised once again to restore humanity.