The Trinamool Congress has moved the Supreme Court of India against the Election Commission of India (ECI), stepping up its challenge to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal. The petition, filed by TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien, contests a series of ECI orders linked to the exercise and, in its 101-page submission, alleges that the poll body has acted beyond the scope of law through arbitrary and opaque procedures. The move comes a day after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced her decision to approach the apex court, terming the revision exercise flawed and arbitrary.
A central allegation in the petition concerns the mode of communication adopted by election authorities. The TMC has claimed that since the start of the state-wide SIR, there have been more than 50 instances where instructions were issued by the Chief Electoral Officer’s office through WhatsApp messages and oral directions.
“The ECI has, in effect, substituted its formal system of statutory communication with what is being informally described at the field level as a ‘WhatsApp Commission’,” the petition said, adding that critical instructions and warnings were conveyed through messaging platforms rather than official channels.
The party has urged the Supreme Court to restrain the Election Commission from issuing directions to Booth Level Officers (BLOs) through WhatsApp or other informal platforms, arguing that such practices undermine transparency, accountability and due process.
The TMC has also raised serious concerns over alleged large-scale deletion of voters’ names. It claimed that in several Assembly constituencies, electors were being removed centrally through the ECI’s ERO-net portal without the knowledge or consent of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). “Such centralised backend deletions… bypass the statutory role of EROs, who alone are empowered to decide on inclusion or exclusion based on ground-level verification,” the petition said.
The party further alleged technological mismanagement, claiming that voters were mapped using undisclosed software and algorithms. “The Election Commission has not even disclosed the list of 1.36 crore electors against whom logical discrepancies have allegedly been found,” it said. “At the moment, there is absolutely no clarity about what software has been used, how the digitisation process occurred, or how it fell short,” the petition added, accusing the ECI of functioning in an “opaque manner” that avoids public scrutiny.
Highlighting the human impact of the exercise, the TMC told the court that elderly voters and other vulnerable groups were facing repeated verification demands, complex documentation requirements and physical visits to offices. According to the party, such procedures were causing “immense hardship” and amounted to effective disenfranchisement, particularly for those least equipped to navigate a technology-heavy process.
The court challenge follows an escalating political confrontation over the SIR. Earlier this month, Mamata Banerjee wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, urging him to halt what she termed an “unplanned, ill-prepared and ad hoc” exercise marked by “serious irregularities and procedural violations”. She warned that unless immediate corrective steps were taken, the exercise risked “irreparable damage” and “large-scale disenfranchisement”.
The controversy has also seen a public clash between TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and the Chief Election Commissioner in New Delhi, underscoring the growing tension between the ruling party and the poll body.
However, the Bharatiya Janata Party has strongly rejected the allegations. Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari described Mamata Banerjee’s objections as politically motivated. In a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, Adhikari urged the ECI to continue the SIR “undaunted”, calling it a carefully planned national exercise aimed at removing duplicate, bogus and ineligible entries.
