West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sharply escalated her criticism of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists, writing a strong letter to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday. She asked him to immediately stop the process, which she described as chaotic, forceful and unsafe.
Banerjee said she felt forced to write because the voter list revision in the state had reached a very troubling stage. She accused the Election Commission of running the drive in an unplanned and risky way that had weakened the entire system from the very beginning.
The BJP rejected her claims, saying the ruling Trinamool Congress was only trying to stop a legal voter roll revision.
Mamata claims absence of “basic preparedness, adequate planning or clear communication”
In her letter, Banerjee said officials and citizens were being pushed into a process that was messy, poorly organised and unsafe. She said the Election Commission had launched the SIR without basic preparation, with major gaps in training, confusion over documents, and booth-level officers (BLOs) struggling to meet voters during their work hours.
She warned that these problems had made the entire drive weak and left its credibility in serious danger.
Banerjee urged the CEC to step in immediately, stop the pressure tactics, ensure proper training and support for officials, and re-evaluate the current approach and deadlines. She said failing to fix the situation quickly would cause long-lasting damage to the system, the officials involved and the public.
Her three-page letter described the severe strain on BLOs, many of whom are teachers and frontline workers already managing their normal duties. They are now expected to go house to house and deal with online submissions that regularly crash or show errors. Many BLOs, she said, cannot handle the faulty online forms because of poor training, server problems and repeated data mismatches.
At the current pace, she warned that voter information from many constituencies would not be uploaded accurately by December 4. She added that BLOs, under extreme pressure and fearful of punishment, were being forced to enter incorrect or incomplete data, which could unfairly remove genuine voters and damage the reliability of the voter list.
Banerjee also criticised what she called the Election Commission’s unacceptable response, saying that instead of fixing the problems, the CEO’s office in Bengal was intimidating workers by issuing unjustified notices. She said BLOs were already exhausted and worried, and were now being threatened with disciplinary action because the Commission refused to accept the real conditions on the ground.
She added that the timing of the SIR was making things even worse, since Bengal is currently in the middle of paddy harvesting and Rabi sowing. She said millions of farmers and labourers cannot be expected to leave their fields to take part in the voter verification process.
Banerjee said the human cost had become too heavy to ignore. She mentioned the suicide of an anganwadi worker serving as a BLO in Jalpaiguri’s Mal area, who was reportedly under intense pressure from SIR work, and said several others had also died since the process began. A revision that once took three years had been squeezed into three months, creating harsh working conditions and widespread fear and uncertainty, she said.
She warned that continuing this rushed and forceful drive would not only put more lives at risk but also threaten the legitimacy of the entire voter roll revision.
The BJP dismissed Banerjee’s accusations, claiming she was trying to block a lawful exercise. Union minister Sukanta Majumdar said no amount of threats or drama would stop the SIR and argued that if Banerjee was uncomfortable with a legal process that revealed her politics on infiltration, she should state her position openly or step down. He added that the Election Commission was doing its job well and said the chief minister should resign if she could not accept this.
TMC accuses EC of rushing the SIR process
The Trinamool Congress answered back, accusing the Election Commission of rushing the process at an inhuman pace. TMC spokesperson Arup Chakraborty said the EC was placing impossible deadlines on BLOs and forcing them to work under extreme pressure to please the central government. He said the commission had shown no concern for BLOs who had died.
He claimed that 30 people in Bengal had died by suicide or heart attack due to fear of losing their voting rights, including two BLOs who took their own lives because of work pressure.
The Election Commission has not yet responded to Banerjee’s latest letter, even as the political tension around what was once a routine administrative process continues to grow, with rising complaints of pressure, confusion and overreach.
