Union Home Minister Amit Shah sharpened the BJP’s “infiltration” pitch, declaring that while “only names are being deleted now” from West Bengal’s electoral rolls under the SIR, they would be “removed from the state” once the party comes to power, raising the stakes ahead of the Assembly polls.
Launching the BJP’s ‘Poriborton Yatra’ from Mathurapur in South 24 Parganas, his first visit since the publication of the post-SIR rolls on Saturday, Amit Shah slammed the TMC government over what he described as years of unchecked infiltration under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s watch, signalling that border security and citizenship will anchor the BJP’s final electoral push.
“Right now, only names are being deleted from voter rolls, and Mamata Didi is nervous. Once BJP forms the government, we will identify and remove every infiltrator from Bengal,” he said, addressing a gathering in the coastal belt abutting the Sundarbans and close to the porous Indo-Bangladesh frontier.
His remarks came days after the Election Commission’s post-SIR rolls recorded 63.66 lakh deletions, 8.3 per cent of the electorate, reducing the voter base to just over 7.04 crore ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls.