Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee arrived in the national capital on Monday amid her ongoing tussle with the Election Commission and found herself in a face-off with Delhi Police outside Banga Bhavan. Voicing her protest, Mamata said, “We came here for justice,” and warned that “such threats cannot continue.”Mamata is scheduled to meet chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar at the Election Commission headquarters later in the day. The visit comes amid mounting political tension over the poll body’s ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) exercise.Questioning the heavy police deployment outside Banga Bhavan, the chief minister asked the personnel to move away, clarifying that she had no plans to stage an agitation.Taking strong exception to what she called “atrocities” by Delhi Police, Banerjee drew a comparison with the treatment accorded to Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his visits to West Bengal. “When the home minister comes to Bengal, we give him the red carpet. But when we come to Delhi, you give us the black carpet,” she said.She also alleged harassment of people from Bengal and appealed to the authorities to exercise restraint. “Please restrain yourself from the atrocities, from the torture of the Bengal people who have lost their lives,” Mamata said.“If no one fights in this country, I will fight, our party will fight,” she added, stating that she was in Delhi for a press conference at Banga Bhavan. “The people of Delhi don’t know what’s happening in Bengal. I just now got the information, and I didn’t even change my clothes,” she said.A 15-member Trinamool Congress delegation, led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee and party National general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, is scheduled to meet CEC Gyanesh Kumar.The delegation will raise concerns over what the party called the “biased, arbitrary, discriminatory, and politically motivated” conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bengal.In a post on X, the official TMC account said, “Today, led by Smt.@MamataOfficial and Shri@abhishekaitc, a 15-member delegation will meet the CEC to formally place on record our grave concerns over the biased, arbitrary, discriminatory, and politically motivated conduct of SIR in Bengal.”“The delegation will present our categorical demands and seek urgent corrective action, especially as our repeated representations to @ECISVEEPhave thus far been met with silence,” the post added.The nationwide SIR exercise is currently under way in 12 states and union territories, with the final electoral roll scheduled to be published on February 7. The states and UTs include Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
