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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has once again shot off a letter to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, sharpening her criticism of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state and terming the exercise “arbitrary, inhumane and constitutionally unsound”. In her fifth letter since the SIR began, Banerjee alleged that large-scale errors caused by the Artificial Intelligence–driven digitisation of the 2002 electoral rolls were inflicting serious hardship on genuine voters ahead of the Assembly elections later this year, leading to the wrongful classification of lakhs of electors as having “logical discrepancies”.
Mamata Banerjee argued that the Election Commission’s decision to digitise manual voter lists from 2002 using AI tools, many of which were originally in vernacular scripts, resulted in serious inaccuracies. “During this transliteration, grave errors occurred in elector particulars such as name, age, sex, relationship and guardian’s names,” Banerjee wrote. “These errors have resulted in large-scale data mismatches, leading to many genuine voters being categorised as having ‘logical discrepancies’, “she added.
She said that while the Commission initially flagged around 1.35 crore electors under this category, the number has since been revised to approximately 94 lakhs.
Banerjee also accused the Election Commission of disregarding its own statutory processes followed consistently over the past two decades. She pointed out that since 2002, numerous electors had corrected their details through Form-8 submissions, supported by valid government documents, and after due quasi-judicial hearings conducted by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant EROs. “The Commission is now compelling electors to once again establish their identity and eligibility,” she wrote.
“Such an approach, disowning its own actions and mechanisms spanning more than two decades, is arbitrary, illogical and contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution of India,” Mamata Banerjee said. Questioning the logic of reverting to the 2002 rolls, she asked, “Does this imply that all revisions carried out over the intervening years were illegal?”
The Chief Minister further alleged serious procedural lapses in the conduct of SIR hearings. She claimed that electors submitting documents were often not issued acknowledgements, leading to situations where papers were later reported as “not found” or “not available on record”. “On that basis, names of electors are being deleted from the electoral rolls,” she warned.
In addition, the Chief Minister also raised concerns that hearing notices were being issued indiscriminately, even to voters who had already been successfully mapped to the 2002 rolls. “This is causing avoidable confusion and hardship to genuine electors,” Banerjee wrote, adding that minor discrepancies in names or ages should have been resolved administratively through “table-top exercises” by Booth Level Officers and EROs, without forcing voters to appear for hearings.
Describing the SIR process as “largely mechanical”, Banerjee said it was “driven purely by technical data and completely devoid of the application of mind, sensitivity and human touch”, undermining “the bedrock of our democracy and constitutional framework”.
The SIR exercise has remained politically contentious since its launch, with the ruling Trinamool Congress repeatedly accusing the Election Commission of acting at the behest of the BJP and “weaponising” electoral rolls to disenfranchise voters in Bengal.
In a related development, the Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Election Commission on petitions filed by TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien and MP Dola Sen, challenging the procedures adopted during the SIR. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, told a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi that instructions were being conveyed to field officials through platforms such as WhatsApp and that the newly introduced “logical discrepancy” category lacked transparency. The court has granted the Election Commission time until next Monday to file its response, when the matter will be heard again.
