Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee took on the BJP, specifically Union home minister Amit Shah, on Tuesday with an aggression that even by her standards appeared unusual.
The ground was prepared by Shah in Calcutta where he read a charge sheet against the Bengal government. Mamata, not known for backing out of a challenge, replied with belligerence that bordered on threats.
“If we wanted we would not have allowed you to step out. You are fortunate. This is not our weakness. Rather our culture forbids us from doing so,” she said at Birsinghapur in Bankura’s Barjora, 178 km north-west of Calcutta, without naming Shah.
Earlier in her speech, she had described him as Dushasan, one of the Kaurav brothers from the Mahabharat.
The Bengal chief minister appeared to have been particularly enraged with the Union home minister’s comment that infiltration was not happening even in Kashmir, which saw one of the most horrific terror attacks in April this year.
“Infiltration is happening only in Bengal? Not in Kashmir? What happened in Pahalgam, were you behind it? The recent bomb blast in Delhi, did you plan it?” Mamata asked.
For over a month, the ruling Trinamool has been on the warpath against the Election Commission over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengal. Mamata will be seeking a fourth-straight term in the 2026 Assembly polls and her nearest rival is the BJP.
In Barjora, she announced that there should be no yearend picnic, “no festivals” for the footsoldiers of her party. Her instruction to the Trinamool’s booth level activists (BLAs) was to camp outside the centres where the SIR hearings are on.
“Don’t leave till the names of all the genuine voters are included in the list,” she said. “When the enumeration forms were distributed, the BLAs were there. When counting takes place, BLAs are allowed. The commission is not allowing the BLAs in the hearing centre because the BJP does not have enough manpower to cover each booth.”
She also claimed that 54 lakh names out of the 58.2 lakh dead, permanently shifted, absent and duplicate voters were deleted from the draft electoral rolls with the use of artificial intelligence (AI), without oversight.
“Senior citizens, new voters, tribals and Scheduled Castes, Hindus and Muslims, everyone has been targeted [via the SIR],” the chief minister claimed.
Those who have seen the Trinamool chief up close in the over four decades that she has spent in public life say that when jittery, Mamata goes on confrontation mode.
The Bengal chief minister does have plenty to worry about in the ongoing SIR process.
After the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the difference of votes between the Trinamool and the BJP stood at 42,43,052.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP has already claimed that in terms of actual votes the BJP and the Trinamool are now on a par. He may or may not be correct.
Analysis of Election Commission data reveals that the number of voters deleted exceeds the margin in around 42 of the 77 seats that the BJP had won.
On the Trinamool’s side, at least in 70 seats the victory margin was lower than or perilously close to the total voters deleted in the SIR. The trend is visible in seats across Calcutta in places like Rash Behari, Chowringhee, Jorasanko, Shyampukur, Maniktala and Kashipur-Belgachhia. This is also visible in the adjoining districts of Howrah, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas.
These four districts in south Bengal have been Trinamool fortresses for the last 14 years or so.
In Mamata’s own constituency, the victory margin of the nominee in the 2021 polls, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, was 28,719. The number of voters deleted is 44,787. Mamata had won the seat later during a by-election by a margin of 58,835.
In constituencies adjoining Calcutta like Barrackpore, Dum Dum North, Panihati, Dum Dum, Bidhannagar, Rajarhat-Gopalpur, Barasat, Sonarpur South, Jadavpur, Sonarpur North, Behala East and Behala West – which the Trinamool has been winning since 2011 and in some cases even earlier – deletions are higher than the victory margins.
In the industrial belts of North 24 Parganas Jagatdal and Noapara, the urban pockets in Howrah, Hooghly, Burdwan-Asansol as well, the trend is similar.
However, among these 58.20 lakh deleted voters, how many actually went to cast their votes or how many of them voted for the Trinamool remains unknown. Political analysts argue that the bulk of votes, even if the voters did not step out to vote, would fall into the ruling party’s kitty.
Of the 7.08 crore voters in the state, the 1.36 crore enumeration forms flagged by the Election Commission as needing scrutiny make up around 19 per cent of the total electorate.
To the 58 lakh voters whose names were deleted, Mamata told them from the Barjora meeting to re-apply.
The worry for Mamata and the Trinamool is that the deletions post the hearings could end up eating into strongholds especially in Calcutta, adjoining districts and those places where minority voters dominate.
That is why the Trinamool is insisting on the presence of the BLAs in the hearings. That is why special roll observer IAS officer C. Murugan’s vehicle was damaged during a visit to one of the hearing centres in South 24-Parganas Magrahat on Monday.
That is why the Trinamool MLA from Chinsurah in Hooghly has forcibly stopped the SIR hearing from Tuesday morning. The MLA Asit Majumdar’s victory margin in the 2021 Assembly polls was 18,417, while the names of 27,386 voters have been deleted from the draft rolls.
The belligerence of Mamata, Majumdar and other Trinamool leaders is rooted in this fear of SIR deletions wiping out the party’s dominance over Bengal.
The fear may or may not be unfounded. It will be known for certain only after the election results next year.
