.webp)
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday launched a sweeping attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI) over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, alleging that the exercise is being used to illegally delete the names of valid voters on a massive scale, with women and marginalised groups bearing the brunt.
Addressing media, Banerjee reiterated, “over 54 lakh voters have already been removed from the rolls without due process. She alleged that the deletions were carried out using artificial intelligence tools operated from Delhi, and insinuated the presence of a BJP-linked IT official inside the office of the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) during the process.” She claimed, “Married women who changed their surnames after marriage and voters who shifted residences from their parental homes to their in-laws’ homes formed the largest group affected by these deletions.”
The Chief Minister also alleged “serious discrepancies” in voter mapping and held the Election Commission solely responsible. Drawing a sharp analogy, she said, “Even an accused murderer is entitled to legal representation, yet voters here were being deleted without their knowledge.” She added, “Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) themselves were unaware of the deletions attributed to them and that their association had formally complained to the Commission that their names were being misused.”
Banerjee further alleged that although the 54 lakh deleted voters are legally entitled to submit Form 7 and Form 8 under the SIR process, the identities of these voters have not been disclosed. “No political party has been given the list of deleted voters. We have not even seen the draft list. Who were deleted and why—no information has been shared,” she said, alleging that the list may be accessible only to the BJP.
She questioned claims that only a handful of objections had been filed, saying thousands of distressed citizens were being forced to wait for hours during hearings, while many did not even know their names had been removed. The recently published draft rolls, running into lakhs of pages, were impossible for ordinary citizens to verify, she argued.
The Chief Minister alleged that deletions were carried out without notice, without explanation, and without giving voters a chance to be heard, calling it illegal and unconstitutional. She claimed that voters who changed residences were also disproportionately affected, describing the process as a “trap” designed to manipulate elections in favour of the BJP.
Banerjee drew parallels with similar exercises in Maharashtra, Haryana and Bihar, alleging that voter deletions there went unnoticed until elections were announced, leaving no scope for legal remedy. She claimed West Bengal was now being subjected to the same “blueprint.”
She also alleged that even after approvals by District Election Officers (DEOs), EROs and BLROs, an additional column for observers—whom she described as BJP-aligned—was being used to nullify earlier approvals, resulting in mass deletions. According to her, reports indicate that names of voters called for hearings and logged by district magistrates were later blocked and removed.
Calling the situation a “grave conspiracy,” Banerjee warned that the Election Commission was effectively deciding the outcome of elections even before polls were announced by removing large sections of the electorate. At least 84 deaths, four suicide attempts, and at least 17 cases of heart attacks or brain strokes had occurred following the issuance of SIR notices, putting the total number of affected individuals at around 105, she stated, holding ECI and BJP “morally responsible” for these deaths.
Calling the ECI a “WhatsApp Election Commission,” Banerjee criticised the sudden declaration of January 13 and 14 as SIR hearing deadlines, coinciding with the Gangasagar Mela when administrative machinery was stretched. She claimed nearly 70 lakh hearings are still pending, and even completed hearings were being marked as “details not found.”
The Chief Minister expressed outrage over prominent figures such as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, poet Joy Goswami, actor and MP Dev, former cricketer Laxmi Ratan Shukla, and cricketer Mohammed Shami allegedly being flagged or deleted, questioning whether the policy was to remove all living voters while retaining only the ruling party’s supporters.
