Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she would move the Supreme Court against the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bengal.

The chief minister alleged the SIR had brought fear, harassment and administrative arbitrariness that had led to several deaths and hospitalisations. She said her government would take legal recourse against the "inhumane" process.

Accusing the Election Commission of undermining voters' democratic rights, she spoke of an "unholy nexus" between the poll panel and the BJP-led Centre.

"This fight is for survival. We'll take the help of the law. Once the courts reopen tomorrow, we'll go to court seeking justice for the many deaths," Mamata told a public gathering at Gangasagar.

"The way so many people have been harassed, we will appeal against them (poll authorities) before the court.... I will go as a common person to the Supreme Court."

The chief minister, who is a qualified lawyer, added: "I will not go as a lawyer. I will go as a common human being to speak for the people.

"I will take permission to speak and try to point out what is happening at the grassroots level, how people are being harassed on the ground. Whatever effort the BJP initiates, it will not get the result it wants."

Sources said Trinamool's Kalyan Banerjee, an advocate, had already filed a petition in the Supreme Court on behalf of MPs Derek O'Brien and Dola Sen.

Trinamool insiders said that preparations for a legal battle had been under way for the past few weeks, becoming evident when Abhishek Banerjee submitted a memorandum to the commission.

Mamata wrote to the commission for the third time on Sunday, protesting against the “inhumane” SIR and flagging multiple alleged irregularities in the process that she said could cause “irreparable damage”.

A Trinamool insider in Calcutta said the party leadership intended to place these issues before the court as evidence.

Mamata alleged that the poll panel was issuing instructions on WhatsApp to officials involved in the SIR process, which Abhishek too had highlighted in the 10 questions that were part of his memorandum.

The chief minister said the poll panel was trying to “vanish” people from the voter list, warning that such actions would backfire.

“There is a Royal Bengal Tiger here. Remember, friend, if you come here to bite, you will get such a bite in return...,” she said.

Mamata alleged that the SIR had claimed dozens of lives and expressed concern at elderly and ailing citizens being summoned for hearings.

“People aged above 85 are being summoned, some appearing with oxygen support. Pregnant women are also being summoned. After living in this country for so long, do they still need to prove they are voters and citizens of this nation?” she said.

“How would BJP leaders feel if someone made their old parents stand in line to prove their identity?”

Mamata claimed that names were being arbitrarily struck off the rolls, turning a routine administrative exercise into a source of widespread fear.

She claimed that women were being harassed over the changes to their surname after marriage.

“It’s not a crime when a woman changes her surname after marriage. Yet, because of the surname change, her name is being struck off the voter list. Since women’s addresses also change after marriage, their names are being erased,” she said.

She accused the poll panel of ignoring caste certificates issued by the Bengal government.

Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari “welcomed” Mamata’s decision to move the top court. “If you want to contest in the Supreme Court, go and do whatever you have to do. Don’t harass the people of Bengal,” the BJP leader said.

Earlier in the day, Adhikari had written to chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, asserting that the claims the chief minister had made in her letters about the SIR process were false.

While Mamata, in her latest letter, described the SIR as a “farce” aimed at disenfranchising genuine voters, Adhikari claimed that the people of Bengal had embraced the exercise as a “beacon of hope”.

“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,” he wrote in his four-page letter.

“Her narrative of ‘anxiety and harassment’ is a TMC-orchestrated mirage, drowned out by the chorus of approval from those who reject her politics of patronage and prefer the purity of the ballot.”

During her Gangasagar visit, Mamata laid the foundation stone for a four-lane, 5km bridge over the Muriganga that will connect Kakdwip to Kachuberia.