West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dropped a political explosive in Cooch Behar on Tuesday, alleging that the Election Commission and the Centre plan to announce the 2026 Assembly elections immediately after publishing the final electoral rolls post-Special Intensive Revision in February, deliberately to deny citizens and parties any window to legally challenge mass deletions.

Addressing a massive public gathering, Banerjee claimed the hurried timeline is a calculated move to force the state to vote on what she described as a manipulated voters’ list. “They will declare elections the moment the final SIR rolls are out, so that no one gets the opportunity to move court against wrongful deletions,” she charged, warning that lakhs of genuine voters, especially from minority and marginalised communities, risk disenfranchisement.

The Trinamool Congress supremo accused the BJP-led central government of weaponising the SIR exercise to create an atmosphere of terror, forcing people who have lived in Bengal for generations to scramble for documents to prove citizenship. “Is there a bigger humiliation than asking lifelong residents to prove they belong here?” she thundered, terming the ongoing revision a deliberate assault on democratic rights ahead of the crucial polls.

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Banerjee further alleged that the Centre was waiting for the slightest pretext to impose President’s Rule in West Bengal. “Had my government resisted or blocked the SIR, they would have dismissed the elected government overnight and brought in central rule,” she claimed, asserting that her administration was being compelled to cooperate only to protect constitutional stability while continuing to fight the “conspiracy” politically.

Reiterating that any attempt to capture Bengal through engineered voter suppression would be met with fierce resistance, the Chief Minister declared that the people of the state would safeguard their culture, language, and democratic heritage against what she branded an “anarchic and autocratic” regime at the Centre, setting the stage for an explosive electoral battle in 2026.

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