Names struck off the electoral roll are not errors but a “sinister plan” to render legitimate Indian citizens, residents of Bengal, strangers in their own land, said Mamata Banerjee on Sunday.

Drafting a narrative of “democratic revenge”, the chief minister asked the electorate who survived the special intensive revision (SIR) of poll rolls to treat this month’s Assembly polls as a formal mechanism for retribution against the alleged BJP-Election Commission nexus.

Addressing a rally in Samserganj, the epicentre of the Waqf Act protests in Murshidabad last year, Mamata tore into the SIR, framing it as a political offensive conducted by the “Mota Bhai (Union home minister Amit Shah)” machinery to pave the way for detention camps.

“Cast your votes to take revenge for the removal of people’s names, and against the SIR. In a way that the results reflect it,” she said, pitching the EVM as the only defence against an administration she claimed is being “outsourced” to the BJP-EC combine.

“Avenge (with your vote) the countless left out,” added the Trinamool Congress chairperson.

The chief minister highlighted a “logical discrepancy” that Delhi’s “jomidar (feudal lords)” did not explain.

She questioned why the 2024 Lok Sabha election roll — which saw both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union home minister return to power — was suddenly deemed “infiltrated” and unfit for the state polls merely two years later.

“If the voter list contained names of infiltrators, the Prime Minister and the Union home minister also won with their votes earlier, so they should have resigned first,” she noted.

In the Muslim-majority, 22-seat vital district that she hopes will sway entirely in her favour, Mamata moved to consolidate her base. After rallies in Samserganj and Jiaganj, she spearheaded a 1.6-km march through Behrampore.

The pacing of her speech quickened as she moved to the hardware of the polls. Warning her cadre against the BJP’s “purchasing power”, the Trinamool supremo issued a stern directive to booth agents: “I hope none of our booth agents will sell themselves off to the BJP.” Anticipating a “malfunction” spree by the BJP-EC machinery, she instructed workers to resist the “repair” of EVMs by EC officials, demanding immediate replacements instead.

“They will get a significant amount of time from the day of polling to counting. Make sure they cannot tamper with the machines by using central forces to protect them,” she warned, adding that transparency must be maintained to ensure EVMs are not tampered with by central forces.

Mamata also slammed the mass transfer of nearly 500 state officials, calling it an unprecedented interference in the state’s functional autonomy. Her voice took on a sharper edge as she detailed the human cost of these administrative shifts.

She did not spare the “migratory poll birds” of Delhi, mocking their absence during natural calamities and other needs of the people.

“Mota Bhai, why don’t we get to see you when people die due to river bank erosion? Why are you unavailable when the dredging of Farakka Barrage is needed? You are the one who is deleting women voters. You are anti-woman, anti-youth and anti-worker,” she said.

“They are branding people as infiltrators for speaking in Bengali. They have targeted Bengal. After winning Bengal, we will target Delhi. We will oust them from power. An uprising must happen across the country against the BJP. They must be thrown out of power, or else they will ruin the country,” she added.

Bhabanipur incident

Mamata dismissed the chaos during Amit Shah’s Bhabanipur visit as a “planned attack” by outsiders brought in during the filing of nomination by BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari. “They spat on my posters and brandished shoes at Abhishek’s residence,” Mamata claimed. “The locals staged a protest against the indecent and unruly behaviour. It’s not politics but dirt,” she said, reacting to the EC’s subsequent suspension of four Kolkata Police officers. She accused the BJP of manufacturing “religious poison”, adding that the “autocratic and corrupt” BJP should not get even one vote.