Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday dismissed the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists as a "silent invisible rigging" orchestrated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to manipulate the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections. Banerjee, the Diamond Harbour MP in Mamata Banerjee's party, asserted that TMC would not only retain but expand its dominance, even if by a single seat in the impending state elections, negating apprehensions that TMC is opposing SIR to protect its ‘vote bank’. He also vowed to slash the BJP's tally to below 50 seats.
"Despite this SIR, we will increase our seats even after SIR – even if by one – and you (BJP) will be below 50," Banerjee declared, framing the revision as a desperate ploy by the saffron brigade to engineer a "backdoor NRC" (National Register of Citizens). He accused the Centre of weaponising the process to exclude genuine Bengali voters, particularly in TMC strongholds, under the guise of curbing infiltration from Bangladesh.
The SIR Phase 2, announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday, mandates a two-month overhaul of electoral rolls in West Bengal and 11 other States/Union territories to verify voter authenticity amid concerns over illegal migrants. Banerjee, argue it's selectively targeted at Bengal while Assam which is under BJP rule, has been strategically kept outside the purview of SIR for now. “How is this possible? What magic stick do they have that they can finish off the mammoth task in such a short span. While SIR is logical for Bengal then why not for Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura because they too share border with Bangladesh”, he questioned.
"If your motive is to deport Bangladeshis, why not conduct SIR there? This is about selecting voters, not cleaning lists," Banerjee added, questioning the rushed timeline compared to the two-year exercise in 2002.
In the 2021 state Assembly polls, BJP won 77 seats in the 294-member House. Yet, they lost several MLAs after they defected to TMC. Interesting the same saffron party made a stunning win of 18 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, for the fist time in history. But in less than two years since then, BJP managed to garner numbers in equal measure in 2021 assembly polls. Momentum evaporated in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections further, where BJP candidates won just 12 of Bengal's 42 seats – a humiliating drop from 18 in 2019 – as TMC swept 29. Banerjee's rhetoric taps into this narrative of BJP's fading footprint, alleging SIR as their last-ditch bid to reverse the tide.
Escalating the confrontation, Banerjee issued a pointed challenge to the BJP-led Centre: "If we win even after your SIR machinations, release the pending funds you've withheld from Bengal for years. No more games with MGNREGA wages, PM-Awas Yojana dues, or flood relief – pay up or face the people's wrath." He alluded to the Supreme Court's recent rebuke to the Centre over delayed MGNREGA payments to the state, calling it a "historic victory" against Delhi's "arrogance." Over the past few years, Bengal has accused the Union government of starving it of over Rs 1.5 Lakh crore in central schemes, exacerbating rural economical distress
Banerjee didn't stop at barbs; he warned of mass mobilization. "If a single eligible voter's name is deleted, one lakh Bengalis will gherao the EC office in Delhi. TMC will do what it has to - peacefully, but firmly." He held Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar accountable for heightened anxieties, even linking them to a recent suicide in North 24 Parganas, where the victim cited fears over NRC and SIR in his note.
