West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday issued a defiant challenge over the integrity of the upcoming assembly elections, asserting that she would win the crucial Bhawanipore seat “even if by just one vote” - despite what she described as mass deletion of voters’ names from the rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process. Her remarks came during a Holi and Dol festival event at Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata.
Addressing the gathering, Banerjee sharply criticised the Election Commission of India (ECI) and accused it of working in tandem with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), alleging an attempt to skew the electoral rolls against her party’s prospects. She claimed that roughly 60,000 names had been removed from Bhawanipore’s electoral list - an assertion based on data scrutinised after the SIR exercise and lambasted the authorities for what she called “inhuman and vindictive work.”
“Bhawanipore is a small constituency,” Banerjee said, “yet even if only one genuine voter remains, I will win from there. It’s not easy to defeat us. We will win elections. I will win Bhawanipore - even if it means by one vote.” Banerjee did not restrain her criticism to just the deletion figures. She also accused the poll body of bias and of operating under influence from the BJP, particularly in the way voter names were struck off the rolls without adequate verification. She suggested that millions of names across West Bengal could be similarly affected, depriving genuine electors of their democratic rights.
The Bhawanipore seat holds symbolic importance for Banerjee, who previously won from the constituency by a large margin. With the 2026 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election approaching, the political heat had been soaring in the state. BJP LOP Suvendu Adhikari has even vowed to contest from Bhowanipore, asserting that their face-off in Nandigram during the 2021 election may see a rerun and claims to repeat a victory over her in Bhowanipore in the impending polls. Trinamool Congresss (TMC) had been upping the ante against SIR, essentially with the final list being out. There has been over 62 lakh deletions already and another more than 60 lakh names are under scrutiny for adjudication at the hands of judicial officers.
Mamata Banerjee has also announced that she will launch a dharna against SIR on March 6 in Kolkata while there isn’t clarity if the dharna will be for any indefinite period. “I am born out of struggle and I will die with my struggle. But I will not surrender. In order to restore and defend the democratic rights of people, my fight will continue”, she added.
