Mamata Banerjee Accuses BJP and EC of Political Manipulation in Voter List Revision

PTI, KOLKATA, NOV 4, 2025 :  Mounting a blistering attack on the BJP and the Election Commission, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accused them of turning the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists into a political tool for a "silent, invisible rigging" ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls.

Mamata warned that the fall of the Narendra Modi government would be "inevitable" if even a single eligible voter was deleted from the state's rolls during the SIR conducted by the EC in the state. Leading a massive anti-SIR rally through the heart of Kolkata, from Dharmatala to Jorasanko—the ancestral home of Rabindranath Tagore—the CM, accompanied by her nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, alleged that the BJP and the EC were "colluding to erase voters from opposition-ruled states" while sparing the ones governed by the saffron party.

"The BJP is conducting SIR in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal, but not in BJP-ruled Assam, Tripura or other North-Eastern states," the CM thundered before a charged crowd. The Assembly polls are due in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Assam next year.

"Why is this bias? This is clear discrimination, aimed at helping the ruling party at the Centre," she said. The Trinamool Congress supremo warned, "If even one genuine voter's name is struck off the rolls, the BJP government will be shaken to its core. The fall of this government will be inevitable."

Accusing the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, whom she mockingly called "kursibabu", of acting under political pressure, Mamata said: "In 2002, Bengal's last SIR took two years to complete. Why the hurry to finish this one in a month? Just to make Modi Babu and Amit Shah happy?"

Questioning the BJP's claim of illegal voters in Bengal, she said: "They say they will expel Bangladeshis and Rohingyas. How many Rohingyas did they find in Bihar after SIR? Just speaking Bengali doesn't make someone a Bangladeshi. Speaking Urdu doesn't make someone a Pakistani. Bengal's identity cannot be insulted like this."

The TMC supremo accused Union Home Minister Amit Shah of hypocrisy. "He criticises our so-called dynastic politics, yet he has appointed his own son to the highest post," she alleged, without naming him.

Taking on the Election Commission, the Chief Minister asked, "If the names of someone's parents are not on the list, would they have to prove again that they were born in this state?"

"The Commission is creating multiple confusions in the rolls. Who will take responsibility for these mistakes? Wouldn't it have been better to conduct this exercise after the elections? Do we have to prove our citizenship even after so many years of birth and independence?" she said, adding that the TMC would continue the fight against the issue both on the streets and in courts. "We will extend our support if they conduct the SIR after the Assembly polls. But how can you do it just months before the elections? This is nothing but a politically motivated move to intimidate voters," she said.

TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the ongoing SIR exercise, alleging that the BJP-led Centre was using the exercise to "intimidate and disenfranchise" ordinary voters. Banerjee urged people to be prepared to "hit the streets in New Delhi" in protest against what he called the deaths of "so many Bengalis due to SIR fear."