BJP slams Mamata for linking 95-year-old's death in West Bengal to 'fears of SIR, NRC'

New Delhi, Oct 30 (PTI) The BJP on Thursday accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of politicising the death of a 95-year-old man in Birbhum district by "falsely" connecting it with "fears of the SIR and NRC", and said her "script" is nothing but a "desperate hoax" written for electoral dividends.

According to police, Kshitish Majumdar was found hanging at his daughter's residence in the Illambazar area of Birbhum on Wednesday night. Family members said he was anxious after learning that his name was missing from the 2002 electoral rolls.

This is the second such death reported in West Bengal in the last 72 hours, following a similar incident at Panihati, near Kolkata.

Banerjee condemned the deaths and a suicide bid allegedly linked to distress over the proposed Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state, and said these incidents reflect the "tragic consequences of the BJP's politics of fear, division and hate".

Hitting back at her, BJP co-incharge for West Bengal Amit Malviya said, "Mamata Banerjee's blatant lies over the tragic suicide of 57-year-old Pradeep Kar of Panihati have already been exposed, as she shamelessly tried to link his death with the NRC." "Now, she has outdone herself by stooping to an abysmal new low. This time, she is politicising the death of 95-year-old Khitish Majumdar by falsely connecting it with fears of SIR and NRC," Malviya said in a post on X.

Raising questions on Banerjee's remarks, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said it is "flabbergasting" how "arrogantly" she assumes that the people of West Bengal are gullible enough to "buy her lies".

"Why would a 95-year-old man, born in 1930 and an Indian by birth, take his own life over SIR? Even if, by any logic, he was not an Indian citizen post-partition and later migrated to India, he was automatically eligible for Indian citizenship under the CAA, being a Hindu," he said.

The truth is that it is not the SIR but Banerjee's "corrupt and crumbling administration that has blood on its hands", Malviya alleged.

"Her current script is nothing but a desperate, hollow hoax -- written for electoral dividends and aimed at insulting the intelligence of Bengal and the very soul of democracy itself," he said.

Once the BJP comes to power in the state, it will ensure a fair probe into all such suicides and bring every "TMC miscreant to justice", he added. PTI PK RC