SIR in West Bengal: CM Mamta Banerjee asks ECI to halt ‘chaotic’ process; warns of ‘irreversible’ consequences

Escalating her opposition to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sent a strongly worded letter to CEC Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday, demanding an immediate halt to the exercise, which she defined as “chaotic, coercive, and dangerous.”

Banerjee mentioned that she has “time and again” raised concerns over the ongoing SIR of the electoral rolls in the state and is now “compelled to write” to the chief election commissioner because the situation has reached a “deeply alarming stage”.

She alleged that the SIR in Bengal is being carried out in an “unplanned, dangerous” manner that has “crippled the process from day one”.

The chief minister accused the Election Commission of thrusting the SIR upon officials and citizens “without basic preparedness, adequate planning or clear communication”, claiming that critical gaps in training, confusion over mandatory documents and the “near-impossibility” of BLOs meeting voters during working hours had rendered the entire exercise “structurally unsound”.

She urged the CEC to “intervene decisively” to halt the ongoing exercise, stop “coercive” measures, provide proper training and support, and “thoroughly reassess” the present methodology and timelines.

“If this path is not corrected without delay, the consequences for the system, the officials and the citizens will be irreversible,” she wrote, calling this a moment that demands “responsibility, humanity and decisive corrective action”.

The three-page letter, among her strongest yet, painted a grim portrait of booth-level officers stretched “far beyond human limits”.

“They are expected to manage their principal duties, many being teachers and frontline workers, while simultaneously conducting door-to-door surveys and handling complex e-submissions,” she wrote, adding that most were struggling with online forms due to lack of training, server failures and repeated data mismatches.

The consequence, she warned, is a “looming breakdown”.

“At this pace, it is almost certain that by December 4, voter data across multiple constituencies cannot be uploaded with required accuracy,” Banerjee said.

Under extreme pressure and “fear of punitive action”, many BLOs were being pushed into filing incorrect or incomplete entries, risking disenfranchisement of genuine voters and “eroding the integrity of the electoral roll”.

Banerjee reserved some of her sharpest criticism for what she described as the Election Commission’s “indefensible” response, not support, but “intimidation”.

She alleged that the Office of the CEO, West Bengal, was issuing show-cause notices “without justification”, threatening already strained BLOs with disciplinary action instead of acknowledging “the reality on the ground”.

Compounding the strain, Banerjee wrote, was the timing of the SIR. Bengal is at the peak of paddy harvest and in the middle of Rabi sowing, a strictly time-bound window, especially for potato cultivation, she said.

“Millions of farmers and labourers are engaged in essential agricultural work and cannot be expected to abandon the fields to participate in SIR enumeration,” she said.

But it was the human cost that Banerjee described as “now unbearable”.

She cited the suicide of an anganwadi worker serving as a BLO in Jalpaiguri district’s Mal area, reportedly under “crushing SIR-related pressure”, adding that “several others have lost their lives since this process began”.

A voter roll revision that earlier took three years, she said, had been “forcibly compressed into three months”, creating “inhuman working conditions” and a climate of “fear and uncertainty”.

The chief minister warned that continuing with the “unplanned, coercive drive” would not only endanger more lives but also “jeopardise the legitimacy of the electoral revision itself”.

The Election Commission is yet to respond to the chief minister’s latest salvo, even as the political temperature around the SIR, once a routine administrative exercise, continues to climb amid charges of overreach, coercion and chaos.

This comes after the ECI urged the West Bengal administration in Nadia on Wednesday to complete the digitisation of the records of the SIR of electoral rolls by 26 November, as the state moves closer to finalising preparations for the upcoming elections.

The state has 7.66 crore electors, of which 7.64 crore Enumeration Forms (EFs) have been distributed, accounting for 99.72 per cent, he said, adding that digitisation has been done for 1.48 crore forms.

EC on SIR

The Election Commission on Thursday said the distribution of enumeration forms under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters’ list in nine states and three Union Territories is nearly complete, with almost 99 per cent of the electors getting the partially filled document.

Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said, SIR has already started in West Bengal. “If people are returning to Bangladesh, then it is good…,” said Sarma, as reported by ANI.

In its daily SIR bulletin, the poll authority said 50.40 crore of the 50.97 crore electors have been issued the forms, which comes to 98.89 per cent.

Phase II of the SIR exercise began on November 4 with the enumeration stage and will continue till December 4.

(With inputs from agencies)