A "happy" Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court-monitored breakthrough in the voter list logjam, but simultaneously sounded an alarm, warning that a "new setup" of poll officers handpicked by the Election Commission had been "entrusted" to reject Trinamool Congress nominations.
Addressing three more rallies, this time in Birbhum and Murshidabad, the chief minister framed Nirvachan Sadan's relentless administrative rejigs here as a BJP-directed trap.
"Everything has changed. It’s a new setup here. The newly appointed officers are entrusted to reject your (Trinamool's) nominations. Be cautious... take lawyers with you when you go to file papers," she said at Birbhum's Nanoor.
The warning came as the Trinamool chief seemed vindicated by the Supreme Court's questioning of the poll panel on how new names through Form 6 could surface so close to the finish line, noting that if an individual becomes an adult just a day before the election, it is simply not possible for their name to surface as an elector this time.
For three days now, Mamata and her nephew and party leader Abhishek Banerjee have been alleging a procedural coup through the misuse of Form 6 and how the BJP was "illegally inducting outsiders" via mass submissions of Form 6.
On Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Joymalya Bagchi directly questioned the EC on this.
"Today I am happy. The Supreme Court has given a good verdict," she said, tearing into the BJP for trying to "insert outsider names in lotus-branded sacks" filled with Form 6.
She claimed her legal intervention had saved at least 22 lakh names from the SIR axe although 18 lakh remained in limbo. "They are picking names like one picks lice," she said.
Targeting the BJP as anti-women, Mamata noted that the maximum deletions hit female voters under the guise of "logical discrepancies" in surnames after marriage.
"Names of women voters have been mercilessly deleted," she said, going on to tear into the saffron regime's communal agenda. "They have mercilessly excluded the names of Muslim voters because they hate Muslims. But they have also deleted Hindu electors."
"We will provide free legal assistance to these people in the tribunals. The Supreme Court today clearly said that appeals in tribunals must be heard by the first phase of the poll," she added.
At Jangipur, she upped the ante.
"Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister after getting elected by the electors who featured in the voter list of 2024. Then why was SIR done just three months prior to these polls? Why is Bengal targeted?" she asked.
"The price of everything has gone up except the value of the lives of people. The BJP is writing posters against me... but it is the BJP that will have to leave Bengal. They must realise that if Bengal is targeted, we will target Delhi. After winning in Bengal, we will ensure that the BJP loses power in Delhi as well," Mamata added.
She urged voters to ignore the candidate and look only at the Trinamool symbol. "I am the candidate in each of the 294 seats. I am fighting to defeat the BJP. The BJP is an anti-Bengali force. By introducing the SIR, they have oppressed you...," said Mamata.
Her party also moved to fortify the legal logistics of the voter war, submitting a detailed representation to Calcutta High Court Chief Justice Sujoy Paul. The party requested that the 19 newly notified tribunals allow a decentralised approach, specifically permitting physical appeal filings at the block development officer level and applicants (or their authorised representatives) to be present during the tribunal hearings.
The party asked Chief Justice Paul to ensure that an affected elector was informed of the reason if the judicial officers had excluded his/her name. This way, if the elector later appeals before the tribunal, s/he can argue based on that reason.
The day ended with another mid-air scare when Mamata’s helicopter retreated from a blinding storm above Murshidabad, forcing a 42km road journey from Burwan to Nabagram. Undeterred, she reached the rain-drenched field to declare: "The babus from Delhi will stay only for a month (for elections). Delhi's feudal lords are not Bengal's protectors. I am."