Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written her sixth letter to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, intensifying her confrontation with the Election Commission over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, days before a Trinamool Congress delegation meets the CEC in New Delhi.
In her latest letter, dated January 31, Banerjee alleged that the methodology and approach adopted during the SIR in Bengal went beyond the provisions of the Representation of the People Act and the rules framed under it, causing “immense inconvenience and agony” to citizens.
She claimed that the exercise had resulted in as many as 140 deaths and was being carried out in blatant disregard of human rights and humanitarian considerations.
For the first time in India’s electoral history, Banerjee wrote, the Election Commission had deployed around 8,100 micro-observers in Bengal during an electoral roll revision, without adequate training or statutory backing.
She questioned the legal authority of these micro-observers, arguing that the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, vested the responsibility of verification, hearings and final decisions solely with Electoral Registration Officers and Assistant EROs.
The chief minister also alleged selective application of rules, claiming that no other state undergoing SIR had seen a similar deployment of micro-observers.
She raised concerns over the appointment of observers from outside the state and alleged that some were functioning from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, and manipulating data on the ECI portal without legal authority.
“These developments raise grave concerns regarding the credibility and integrity of the SIR and warrant immediate investigation,” Banerjee wrote, urging the CEC’s intervention to restore public faith in constitutional and democratic processes.
The January 31 letter follows a series of communications from the chief minister since the revision exercise began.
In her fifth letter, dated January 12, Banerjee complained that no proper acknowledgement or receipt was being issued for documents submitted by electors during SIR hearings, leaving voters without proof of submission and at the mercy of internal record-keeping lapses.
She had also pointed out that voters issued hearing notices were already mapped to the 2002 electoral rolls, either directly or through their progeny, making such notices unnecessary.
The chief minister alleged that the SIR process was mechanical and driven by technicalities rather than a reasoned application of mind.
After nearly 58 lakh names were deleted in the first phase of the exercise, about 1.36 crore voters have been issued notices under the category of “logical discrepancies” in the second phase.
Banerjee blamed large-scale data mismatches on errors that occurred when manual electoral rolls from 2002, including those in vernacular scripts, were scanned and translated into English using artificial intelligence tools.
According to her, mistakes in names, age, gender and guardians’ details led to genuine voters being wrongly flagged.
The chief minister has repeatedly alleged that the SIR is an attempt to implement the National Register of Citizens “through the backdoor”.
Meanwhile, a section of booth-level officers staged protests outside the office of the Bengal Chief Electoral Officer, alleging severe mental and physical pressure during the revision exercise and citing reports of multiple deaths of BLOs in different districts.
Banerjee, in her letters, has also referred to deaths of both BLOs and ordinary citizens linked to the SIR process.
The Election Commission has not yet responded publicly to the latest letter. The February 2 meeting is expected to be crucial as the TMC presses its demand for immediate corrective steps and a review of the SIR process in Bengal.
A TMC delegation led by Banerjee is scheduled to meet Kumar at the Election Commission headquarters on February 2 at 4 pm, EC officials told PTI. The chief minister had earlier said she would take her fight against the SIR exercise to Delhi “sooner rather than later”.