On Wednesday, standing before reporters at Trinamool Bhavan in Kolkata, Abhishek Banerjee assures, “I ask families not to worry,” addressing the apprehension that has gripped several households across Bengal after the Election Commission announced the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
“The BJP’s allied organisation has announced the SIR. Earlier, people used to elect the government. Now, this BJP government wants to select who will vote or not,” he said.
Notably, West Bengal’s Chief Electoral Officer publicly stated that no names of legitimate voters would be deleted during the revision. But Banerjee, also the Diamond Harbour MP and second-in-command in TMC, accused, “This is a politically motivated ploy to exclude genuine voters ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls.”
Banerjee called the SIR a “Silent Invisible Rigging” and added, “The EC has turned into an agency of the BJP.”
“I am warning them, as a parliamentarian, that sooner or later the government will change. The BJP and (Union Home Minister) Amit Shah won’t stay, but the Constitution will.”
Banerjee roars to ‘surround ECI’ over voter list tampering
While taking a jab at Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Banerjee said, “Don’t run away from the country when the government changes. Wherever you go, I will dig you out and bring you back. You will have to answer to the people.”
The TMC leader also questioned the hurried pace of the exercise. Drawing a comparison, he noted, “A similar summary revision in 2002 took two years to conclude, while the current drive is being pushed through in just two months across 12 states.”
Warning the BJP against tampering with the electoral rolls, Banerjee said, “If even a single legitimate voter’s name is removed, one lakh people from Bengal will surround the Election Commission office in Delhi in protest.”
