West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee, is set to hit the streets along with her nephew Abhishek Banerjee against the Special Intensive Exercise (SIR) in West Bengal. Banerjee will lead a protest march against the electoral roll revision in her state, which is a routine, law-backed process, on 4th November, the day the SIR starts.
After trying various tactics and failing to stop the electoral roll revision in her state, the Chief Minister had now resorted to theatrics in a desperate attempt to manufacture a hostile environment against the SIR. The CM and her nephew will commence the march from the B R Ambedkar statue at Red Road to Jorasanko Thakurbari, the residence of Rabindranath Tagore, at around 2 pm. All party workers have reportedly been instructed to gather at the venue on time.
TMC government ordered a major bureaucratic shuffle ahead of the SIR
This comes after her government announced a major bureaucratic shuffle in the state ahead of the SIR. On 27th October, the Mamata government ordered the transfer of 4 IAS officers and 457 WBCS officers, including 14 district magistrates, several special secretaries, OSDs, BDOs, SDOs, and ADMs. Notably, four state government officials were found committing voter registration fraud by the Election Commission in August this year. On the direction of the ECI, the state government had to suspend the government officials, who were caught accepting forged voter registration forms by misusing their authority. Their actions were exposed during a sample checking of voter application forms (Form 6) for routine updates to the electoral roll by the West Bengal Election Commission.
Banerjee’s unsuccessful fear mongering about the SIR
Banerjee, like other opposition parties, has been relentlessly opposing the SIR. She joined the opposition parties in opposing the Bihar SIR. Despite the opposition’s tireless efforts to halt the SIR through bogus allegations of “vote theft” and “disenfranchisement” and protests, the exercise was successfully executed. Several opposition MPs, including those from the TMC, even approached the Supreme Court against the SIR. However, to their disappointment, the Apex Court refused to stay the exercise, citing constitutional and legal backing for it.
When the ECI announced that the electoral roll revision would also be conducted in many other states, including West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee made outrageous statements and engaged in fear-mongering about the process. Opposing the SIR, Mamata Banerjee said that riots and other untoward consequences will follow if the electoral roll revision is carried out in the TMC-ruled state.
The TMC government is accused of aiding illegal immigration
Banerjee’s baseless opposition to the electoral revision in the state, which is grappling with an increasing problem of illegal immigration, raises suspicions about the intentions of her government. The TMC government in West Bengal has long been accused of harbouring illegal immigrants in the state and creating a vote bank using them. The Mamata government’s ruthless opposition to the SIR exercise solidifies the allegations against it. Mamata’s aversion to the SIR signals that perhaps she is afraid of erosion of her alleged voter base, which includes illegal immigrants who are living in the state after forging their documents.
It is not a secret that West Bengal is among the states with the highest numbers of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. In the last three years, 2688 Bangladeshi nationals were apprehended and sent back to Bangladesh. According to a recent study titled “Electoral Roll Inflation in West Bengal: A Demographic Reconstruction of Legitimate Voter Counts (2024)” the 2024 electoral roll of West Bengal could show an astounding 13.69% inflation amounting to 1 crore additional voters.
