Trinamool Congress Sounds Alarm Over Voter Roll Review, Mamata Appeals to Supreme Court

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday made a rare personal appearance before the Supreme Court, strongly urging the judiciary to intervene in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state. Alleging that West Bengal was being selectively targeted, she claimed the process was “bulldozing” voters and threatening democratic rights. The court took note of her plea, observing that “genuine persons must remain on the electoral roll.”

A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi, issued notices to the Election Commission of India and the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal. The court sought their responses by February 9, acknowledging the seriousness of the concerns raised. Banerjee questioned why similar standards were not applied in Assam, alleging discriminatory treatment against Bengal.

Permitted to supplement the submissions of her counsel, senior advocate Shyam Divan, Banerjee told the court that her repeated letters to the Election Commission had gone unanswered. She said the state was “not getting justice anywhere” and appealed to the bench for relief. At the conclusion of the hearing, she thanked the court for the opportunity and urged it to “save democracy.”

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Divan highlighted the scale of the issue, stating that around 1.36 crore voters had been issued notices for “logical discrepancies,” with the process scheduled to conclude on February 14. He argued that many discrepancies involved minor errors such as misspelt names or data mismatches, which could be easily corrected. The court noted that linguistic variations, particularly in Bengali names, often lead to such errors.

Banerjee further alleged that the Election Commission was refusing to accept Aadhaar as valid identification and had wrongly declared several living voters as deceased. The poll panel, however, denied the accusations, with senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi claiming that the state government had not provided adequate senior officers to oversee the SIR process. Banerjee countered by stating that the state had complied with all requests made by the Commission.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had directed that the SIR process be conducted transparently and without inconvenience to voters, ordering the display of names flagged for discrepancies at local offices. Banerjee has repeatedly warned that the continuation of the SIR in its present form could lead to mass disenfranchisement. In a strongly worded letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, she had described the exercise as arbitrary, flawed, and a direct threat to the foundations of democracy.

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