Leader of Opposition in the Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari has intervened on behalf of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to clear the air on the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls that chief minister Mamata Banerjee has written to the poll panel chief against.
“It is clear as daylight that the chief minister’s outrage stems from the counterfactual reality the SIR is proving devastatingly counterproductive to her party’s prospects in the upcoming 2026 Assembly elections, as it lays bare the “extras” – fictitious voters, ghosts of the deceased, and illegal infiltrators; that her administration and party cadres have systematically shielded and thrived upon,” the BJP leader wrote in a letter to CEC Kumar on Monday.
In a letter to Kumar sent on 3 January – made public on Sunday – Mamata had called the SIR exercise in Bengal a farce that threatened to disenfranchise genuine voters.
“The undue haste with which the SIR is being conducted, without adequate groundwork or preparation, has rendered the entire process fundamentally flawed. There has been no proper or uniform training of officials entrusted with this sensitive constitutional responsibility; the IT systems being used are defective, unstable and unreliable; instructions issued from time to time are inconsistent and often contradictory; and there is a complete lack of clarity and planning,” the CM wrote in her letter.
This was Mamata’s third letter to the CEC since 20 November and the first after her nephew and Trinamool general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had a discordant meeting in Delhi’s Nirvachan Sadan on the last day of 2025.
“Instructions via digital channels like WhatsApp are modern, agile tools for urgent clarifications in a time-bound exercise, supplemented by formal circulars and gazette notifications where statutorily required,” wrote Adhikari in his four-page letter.
“This hybrid model enhances responsiveness responses without sacrificing accountability, which is a far cry from the informality decried. Timelines are transparent, publicly available on the ECI portal, and uniformly enforced, with extension granted judiciously based on ground feedback. The daily updates she laments are evidence of the EC’s proactive engagement, not confusion.”
Suvendu denied any haste in the execution of the exercise as claimed by Mamata.
“The SIR was launched following extensive nationwide consultations, with comprehensive training modules disseminated to over 50,000 Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) in West Bengal alone- modules that included hands-on sessions on IT tools and procedural protocols,” Suvendu wrote.
“IT systems, far from being “defective and unreliable,” have processed millions of entries seamlessly, with real-time dashboards ensuring transparency.”
Variations and modifications, if introduced in Bengal by the commission, Adhikari said, “must have been generated out of necessity and compulsion because of the systematic hurdles that are being created here.”
On the alleged backend deletions and document rejections; the BJP leader said: “Assertions of misuse of IT systems for unauthorised deletions are inflammatory fiction. All removals follow strict due process under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 with EROs fully apprised and appeals mechanism in place.
“These actions target verifiable duplicates and anomalies – the very “extras” her regime ignored for years, thus preventing fraud, not disenfranchising the innocent.”
On the exclusion of booth-level activists (BLAs), which the Trinamool has been up in arms against, Adhikari said: “The exclusion of BLAs from hearings, unlike polling stations, is a must to preserve neutrality during sensitive verifications, preventing cadre-led disruptions that have marred past exercises under the Trinamool’s watch. This is not opacity but a bulwark against interference.”
Former Rajya Sabha MP and Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh wondered why the BJP leader was responding to the questions and charges levelled at the Election Commission.
“These are not the issues of any single political party,” Ghosh said. “This is affecting the people at large and the fundamental right to vote is under threat. We want the commission to answer, instead a BJP leader is replying. The BJP knows what dirty jobs it is making the commission do. The EC cannot answer so they are directing BJP leaders to reply.”