Kolkata, Nov 4 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of deliberately keeping poll-bound Assam out of the purview of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, as the BJP ruled the Northeastern state.

“Assembly polls are scheduled for four states of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. But the commission announced SIR only for the three opposition-ruled states and not in Assam. If you have the authority, you should first conduct SIR in North-East India,” the Chief Minister said at the end of a mega rally in Kolkata opposing the SIR.

According to her, the BJP is “scared” of the Bengalis since it knows well that they will never succumb to its “pressure tactics”.

“They had been able to win elections in some other states using these pressure tactics. But they were successful in doing so in West Bengal. So this time they are desperate to capture power in the state by deleting names of several genuine voters in the name of SIR,” she said.

According to her, “if the current voters’ list is faulty, then the Union Government too has no sanctity, since the NDA got elected in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, which were conducted based on the current voters’ list”.

She also attacked the ECI for its “unwillingness” to accept the AADHAAR card as a valid document in SIR. “If that is the case, why did you collect money from people to give them AADHAAR cards? Why insist on linking AADHAAR cards with the bank accounts of people?” the Chief Minister questioned.

She also said that the only purpose of the current Union government is to harass people. “First, they harassed people through demonetisation.

“Several people died in the queues in front of bank branches. They claimed that demonetisation was necessary to bring black money. But that did not happen,” the Chief Minister said.

Speaking on the occasion, Trinamool Congress general secretary and party Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee said that the 2026 West Bengal election will be a battle mainly to defeat the BJP and not just to ensure the victory of Trinamool Congress.

“We will not succumb to the pressure tactics of New Delhi. If the name of a single genuine voter is deleted from the voters’ list after the SIR, Trinamool Congress will take the movement to the national capital,” he added.

Notably, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar recently said that the citizenship rule in Assam is different; therefore, separate revision orders will be issued for the state.

–IANS

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