SIR showdown in Bengal: CM Mamata takes out rally in Kolkata against revision exercise; slams EC

NEW DELHI: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday led a massive protest rally in Kolkata against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which her party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), has described as “silent invisible rigging” by the BJP-led Centre and the Election Commission.Banerjee, accompanied by her nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, began the 3.8-km-long march from the statue of BR Ambedkar on Red Road. The rally will conclude at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, the ancestral home of Rabindranath Tagore.Thousands of TMC supporters lined the route, waving party flags, chanting slogans, and carrying vibrant posters in support of the chief minister.Dressed in her signature white cotton saree and slippers, Banerjee led from the front, often pausing to greet onlookers from balconies and pavements.

Walking close behind, Abhishek Banerjee waved to the cheering crowd, joined by senior party leaders and ministers.The SIR of electoral rolls, which began in West Bengal on Tuesday, has rapidly turned into a major political flashpoint, with the BJP and the Election Commission projecting it as an effort to ensure transparency, while the Trinamool Congress (TMC) prepares for a grassroots confrontation ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

This marks the first such large-scale revision in the state since 2002.The BJP has hailed the SIR as a move aimed at promoting “greater transparency” in the electoral rolls. The ruling TMC, however, has cast doubts over both its timing and intent, accusing the Election Commission of working “under pressure from the saffron party” to manipulate the voter list before next year’s polls.With both sides viewing the exercise as an early test for 2026, political observers are calling it “the battle of two forces, the administrative and the organisational.”Emboldened by what it sees as the Election Commission’s “proactive stance” and the likelihood of central deployment, the BJP is banking on what it terms a “cleansing” of West Bengal’s voter rolls.