Mamata urges ECI to halt SIR in West Bengal, warns of mass disenfranchisement

In a four-page letter written to CEC Kumar on January 3, Banerjee accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of presiding over an exercise marked by confusion, procedural violations and administrative high-handedness, and warned that the process, if allowed to continue in its present form, would strike at the “very foundation of democratic governance”.

The CM said she was “constrained once again” to intervene after her earlier letters in November and December 2025 failed to prompt corrective action. Instead, she alleged, conditions on the ground had worsened, with the revision exercise being rushed through without adequate planning, training or clarity of purpose.

At the heart of Banerjee’s charge is the allegation that the SIR lacks uniform rules and clearly defined timelines, with different states following different criteria. She said instructions were being changed frequently, often through informal channels such as WhatsApp messages and text communications, rather than statutory notifications or circulars — a practice she said had no legal sanctity for an exercise of such constitutional significance.