Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit West Bengal on Saturday, where he is scheduled to address a mega rally in Nadia district and inaugurate key national highway projects worth around Rs 3,200 crore, amid heightened political tension over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The Prime Minister will address a public meeting at Taherpur in Nadia, a Matua-dominated area, at a time when the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress has stepped up its opposition to the SIR exercise, alleging that large numbers of genuine voters, particularly refugee Hindus, could be disenfranchised.
BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar, who represents the Ranaghat Lok Sabha constituency where Taherpur is located, said fear was being deliberately spread among the Matua community over the exercise. “We are hopeful that the Prime Minister’s message will dispel these fears and false narratives,” he said.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already led anti-SIR rallies in Nadia and North 24 Parganas, two border districts with a significant Matua population. The community, comprising Dalit Hindus who migrated from Bangladesh over decades due to religious persecution, has expressed anxiety over identity and documentation issues linked to the revision process.
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According to official figures, the draft electoral rolls published after the enumeration phase saw the exclusion of over 58 lakh names, reducing the electorate to 7.08 crore. More than 1.36 crore entries were flagged for logical discrepancies, while around 30 lakh voters were categorised as unmapped and may be called for hearings.
During the visit, Modi will inaugurate the 66.7-km four-laning of the Barajaguli-Krishnanagar section of National Highway-34 in Nadia district. He will also lay the foundation stone for the four-laning of the 17.6-km Barasat-Barajaguli stretch in North 24 Parganas.
The highway projects are expected to strengthen connectivity between Kolkata and Siliguri, boosting trade, tourism and economic activity across southern and northern parts of the state.
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