CM urges ECI to immediately stop Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, citing risk of mass disenfranchisement.
Thousands of genuine voters (especially minorities and poor) face deletion due to inability to produce old documents; process called arbitrary and discriminatory.
TMC warns of voter suppression ahead of 2026 Assembly polls; BJP counters that SIR is necessary to remove bogus names.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written an urgent letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI), demanding an immediate halt to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, warning that the exercise is leading to “large-scale, systematic disenfranchisement” of genuine voters, especially from minority and marginalised communities.
In her strongly worded missive dated January 3, 2026, the Trinamool Congress supremo alleged that the SIR process — which involves door-to-door verification and requires voters to submit multiple documents — has been implemented in a “hasty, arbitrary and discriminatory” manner. She claimed thousands of names, particularly in Muslim-dominated districts like Murshidabad, Malda, North 24 Parganas and parts of South 24 Parganas, have been marked for deletion or put under “pending verification” without proper notice or opportunity to respond.
Mamata Banerjee accused the Commission of “selective targeting” and said the SIR was being used as a “backdoor tool for voter suppression” ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections. “This is not voter list updation; this is voter list elimination,” she wrote, adding that many poor, daily-wage earners, migrant workers and elderly citizens are unable to produce legacy documents like 2003 voter IDs or ration cards, leading to their exclusion.
The Chief Minister demanded:
Immediate suspension of the SIR exercise in West Bengal
Restoration of all deleted names pending proper verification
Extension of the deadline for document submission
Deployment of central observers and civil society monitors to ensure fairness
The BJP dismissed the allegations as “fear-mongering” and accused Mamata of trying to shield “illegal infiltrators and bogus voters” from scrutiny. State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said the SIR was a constitutional duty to clean the rolls and prevent fraud, and that the TMC was “scared of a fair election”.
The ECI is yet to respond officially, but sources indicate the Commission is reviewing complaints from various states where similar concerns have been raised. The SIR, launched in phases across the country, aims to eliminate duplicate, deceased and ineligible entries before the 2026 polls.
The row has intensified political temperature in West Bengal, with TMC planning statewide protests and dharnas if the SIR is not paused.
