West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday alleged that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted in the poll-bound state was intended to help the BJP in the upcoming Assembly elections. Addressing party workers from her sit-in demonstration site at Esplanade, CM Banerjee claimed that the exercise had resulted in the deletion of names of several voters from the electoral rolls.
She said that even with the support of the Election Commission, the BJP would not be able to win the Assembly elections in the state. “The people of Bengal will give them a befitting reply for snatching their rights,” CM Banerjee said. Referring to the alleged deletion of voters’ names, the Chief Minister questioned how people who had voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections could now be excluded from the electoral rolls after the SIR exercise.
“If someone became the Prime Minister after being elected by voters in 2024, how can some of those voters suddenly be declared ineligible? They had exercised their franchise earlier, and now their names are being deleted from the voters’ list,” she said.
CM Banerjee also raised questions about the role of the Election Commission and said Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar should examine the matter. Speaking about former West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose stepping down on March 5, CM Banerjee said there should be clarity regarding the circumstances surrounding his resignation.
“Let there be an inquiry. He still had three years left in his term. Similarly, why did (former) Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, who had earlier served as the Governor of West Bengal, resign from his post last July? Should there not be an inquiry into that as well?” she questioned.
Meanwhile, CM Banerjee on Sunday once again said that the state government had followed protocol and that the BJP was unnecessarily politicising the issue related to President Droupadi Murmu's event venue change.
The Chief Minister said that if there had been any mismanagement at the function, the responsibility lay with the private organisers and the Airports Authority of India, which had provided the venue for the event, and not with the state government.