West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday began a sit-in protest in central Kolkata’s Esplanade area, alleging that genuine voters were being removed from electoral rolls during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

Addressing supporters at the protest site, Banerjee accused the Election Commission of India of working at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party. She claimed that several genuine voters had been wrongly deleted from the list and said she had brought individuals who were marked as “dead” in official records despite being alive.

“I have brought those people who are alive but are shown as dead in the voters’ list, and also families of those who died due to fear surrounding the SIR exercise,” Banerjee said. According to sources, the Chief Minister planned to continue the protest overnight.

During the demonstration, a group of para-teachers gathered outside the venue to raise their own demands. Banerjee appealed to them and others to keep the protest peaceful and avoid turning the gathering into a political platform for unrelated issues.

“This is not the place for anyone to raise other demands. The only issue here is SIR and the right to vote. People should not get instigated,” she said, adding that those seeking publicity should take their demands elsewhere and approach leaders such as Narendra Modi or Amit Shah.

Police later moved the protesting para-teachers away from the demonstration area. The teachers said they had come hoping to speak directly with the Chief Minister.

The protest also sparked controversy after Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee made remarks targeting Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, saying he would have “cut the finger” of the poll chief for allegedly behaving disrespectfully towards the Chief Minister.

The remarks drew sharp criticism from the BJP, with Union Minister Giriraj Singh accusing Banerjee of staging the protest to protect alleged infiltrators and politicise the voter list revision process.