Mamata Banerjee picked up on Wednesday from where she left off on Tuesday, tearing into the BJP over what she alleged was the compromised Election Commission of India’s exclusionary and opaque special intensive revision (SIR) of the Bengal electoral rolls, accusing the party of loot and jhooth (lies), while her party, the Trinamool Congress, started lining up programmes to combat the challenge.

The chief minister and Trinamool supremo, a day after her mega protest march and rally in the city, issued a bellicose statement on Wednesday, underscoring yet again that the SIR was essentially the contentious National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise through the backdoor.

“The 2024 Lok Sabha election was a rude awakening for the BJP. The party that boasted “Abki Baar 400 Paar” failed to secure a single majority. Now they have begun weaponising constitutional bodies to tilt the electoral scales in their favour. The “Karte Loot, Bolte Jhooth” party failed to win on votes, so now they are trying to win by notes, by misusing money and muscle,” she wrote on X.

“They have crossed the ‘Lakshman Rekha’ by conducting SIR in Bengal. If electoral accuracy were the concern, why is SIR being carried out only in Opposition-ruled states among the four heading to polls? Why was BJP-ruled Assam exempted? If the aim was to eliminate “Bangladeshis” and “Rohingyas” from the rolls, why only target Bengal? Bengal shares a border with Bangladesh, just like Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram. But only Bengal is being singled out. Similarly, states like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram, which share borders with Myanmar, are exempted from SIR. Why?” she asked.

“Because SIR is nothing but NRC through the backdoor. Who gave the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, and a certain Mir Jafar the authority to question our legitimacy as citizens on the very soil our forefathers bled for? Who authorised them to demand our parents’ birth certificates and make us prove our existence?” she further asked.

Mamata has been unrelenting for months in her attacks on the saffron regime over the alleged linguistic apartheid against Bengali-speaking Indians, weaving in with it the issue of “backdoor NRC” by an allegedly compromised Nirvachan Sadan, which she says is a “conspiracy to disenfranchise” the poor and the marginalised who she believes are unlikely to vote for the BJP.

Multiple saffron camp insiders have admitted to apprehensions over the electoral outcome of Mamata’s call for a major, popular uprising in the election next summer against the alleged othering and politically motivated marginalisation of the Bengali identity and the Bengal ethos, which she has linked with the SIR in Bengal.

“Do not mistake our civility for weakness. In this fight for people’s identity, constitutional rights and survival, the Bangla-Birodhis will confront a defeat like never before,” she wrote on Wednesday.

“Should any harm come to our people, should a single genuine voter be unfairly struck off the rolls, the people of Bengal will march to Delhi with the cry “BJP Hatao, Odhikaar Bachao.” We will bring the zamindars to their knees and, through democratic means, consign this assault on our rights to dust,” the chief minister said.

Later in the day, her party’s lawyer cell announced a series of public meetings across Bengal between November 11 and 20, with the first one to be spearheaded by finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya (also a lawyer) at Esplanade here at 3pm on November 11.

The programme will seek to enhance outreach and ensure legal aid for the party’s leaders and workers hounded by central agencies — with special focus on areas of relative strength of the BJP, such as East Midnapore and various north Bengal districts — besides the common people.

Later this month, when the Assembly convenes for a session, the Treasury benches are mulling a motion against the SIR. A similar motion was passed by the Assembly in Left-ruled Kerala in September.