TMC claims deported Sonali Bibi's parents' name in 2002 electoral rolls

Kolkata, Nov 1 (PTI) The Trinamool Congress on Saturday claimed that the deported Sonali Bibi's parents were documented as Indian citizens in the 2002 voter list in West Bengal's Birbhum district.

It alleged that the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is "an assault on the very idea of Bengal and its people".

The Calcutta High Court had in September directed the Centre to ensure that Sonali Bibi and her family be brought back to India within a month. This order has been challenged before the Supreme Court by the Union government.

"The deportation of Sonali Khatun, a pregnant woman from Birbhum, exposes not merely bureaucratic cruelty but a calculated political manoeuvring," the TMC said in a social media post.

"What the @BJP4India parades as its SIR drive is, in truth, an assault on the very idea of Bengal and its people. It seeks to weaponise fear, to humiliate citizens by questioning their belonging, and to fracture the social fabric that defines this state," it said.

The Election Commission is holding the SIR in West Bengal and 11 other states in the country. The TMC is opposing the exercise alleging that it is being done at the behest of the BJP, while the saffron party claims that it is a routine electoral revision exercise. The TMC claimed that the names of Sonali's parents - Bhodu Sheikh and his wife, appear in the 2002 electoral rolls in Birbhum district's Murarai.

"To brand an expectant mother as an illegal infiltrator when her parents stand documented as Indian citizens in the 2002 electoral rolls, is not administrative oversight; it is a moral collapse orchestrated in the name of nationalism," the TMC wrote in its X handle post.

"By exiling a pregnant Bengali woman to another country, the BJP has not merely violated constitutional ethics, it has desecrated the conscience of the Republic. This act stands as irrefutable proof that behind the rhetoric of patriotism lies a cold, relentless contempt for Bengal and her people," the TMC said.

Assembly elections are due in West Bengal next year.

The Calcutta High Court had on September 26 set aside the Centre's decision to deport Sonali Bibi, who was claimed to be pregnant, along with her family to Bangladesh after terming them as "illegal immigrants".

The court had directed the Centre to ensure that they be brought back to India within a month.

The court had passed the order in connection with a Habeas Corpus petition filed by Bhodu Sheikh, who claimed that his daughter Sonali, along with her husband, Danesh Sheikh, and five-year-old son hailing from Murarai in Birbhum, were detained in Delhi and deported to Bangladesh.

The Centre has challenged the order before the Supreme Court, while a contempt petition has been filed before the high court claiming that its order has not been complied with. PTI AMR RG