BJP MP Nagendra Roy Calls Modi, Murmu ‘Pakistani’, Links SIR to Detention Camps
New Delhi: Catching leaders of his own party off-guard, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nagendra Roy called Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Droupadi Murmu and West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose “Pakistani” and “Bangladeshi”.
Roy made the inflammatory remarks while addressing a gathering of his supporters in Coochbehar district’s Sitai.
Roy also spoke out against the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has attracted strong criticism from various quarters since it was first launched in Bihar earlier this year.
The West Bengal MP said that the controversial exercise could lead to frozen bank accounts and denial of welfare services if people’s names were deleted from the voters’ list. Roy added that detention camps could be set up to verify people’s place of origin and said that those conducting the exercise were themselves foreigners.
West Bengal BJP president Sameek Bhattacharya did not comment on Roy’s remarks but said that there was no link between the SIR and detention camps.
Reacting to Roy’s comments, Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh accused the saffron party of hatching a deeper controversy to delete a large number of voters as part of the SIR.
The exercise has been in the eye of a storm since it was first announced by the Election Commission in June, with critics accusing it of ushering in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) through the backdoor, causing widespread panic among voters and putting undue pressure on Booth Level officers among other things.
A report by the SPECT Foundation noted that at least 33 BLOs had died by suicide in six states since the beginning of the exercise. However, the report does not include BLO deaths reported in West Bengal, where chief minister Mamata Banerjee has claimed that at least 40 government officials involved in the SIR duties have lost their lives.
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