3-4 people dying by suicide in Bengal every day from SIR anxiety: Mamata

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday delivered a blistering denunciation of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging that the exercise has triggered mass anxiety and a spate of suicides across the state.

Speaking at Kolkata’s Red Road during an event marking the birth anniversary of Subhas Chandra Bose, Banerjee claimed that the SIR process has become so traumatic that “three to four people are dying by suicide everyday” and insisted that both the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Union government must answer for the deaths.

“More than 110 people have already died; everyday three to four people are dying by suicide out of SIR anxiety... 40 to 45 more people are fighting for their lives in hospitals. After all these years, we have to prove whether we are citizens of this country?” she said, accusing the authorities of turning a bureaucratic verification drive into a civic nightmare.

The SIR exercise, conducted ahead of the Assembly polls, has required lakhs of voters to attend hearings and provide documents to justify their entries on the voter list — a process that Banerjee has repeatedly described as punitive and humiliating.

She escalated her criticism by alleging a broader political motive, accusing the BJP of targeting Bengal and attempting to distort the nation’s intellectual legacy. According to the chief minister, national icons such as Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Bose, B.R. Ambedkar and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar were being “insulted” as part of a larger cultural project.

“We are noticing that attempts are being made to distort the history of India... Insult, intolerance, ingratitude towards them and an affront towards language; all these lie ahead of us,” she alleged, lambasting what she described as a saffron rewrite of history.

Banerjee also hit out at the abolition of the Planning Commission — “which was envisaged by Subhas Chandra Bose” — calling its replacement by NITI Aayog emblematic of Delhi’s disregard for India’s historical thinkers. She added it was “unfortunate” that Bose’s birthday still had not been declared a national holiday.

Painting a stark picture of civic rights under assault, Banerjee argued that the dreams of India’s founding figures were being “broken to pieces”, declaring that “this has no relation to the history of the country”. She further charged that “People’s rights are being taken away and democracy is being crushed”, even wondering aloud whether Bose himself would have faced an SIR summons and been asked to prove his citizenship.

Claiming that 1.38 crore people had been called for SIR hearings over alleged “logical discrepancy” and that 58 lakh names had already been deleted from the draft electoral rolls, she declared, “The total number is two crore.”

Banerjee also took a cultural swipe at the BJP’s top brass, accusing them of using teleprompters to deliver token Bengali phrases before elections and thereby “insult[ing] the intelligentsia of Bengal”.

Citing the many legitimate variations in Bengali surnames — including her own, spelt as both Banerjee and Bandopadhyay — she demanded to know why “this is not known by those conducting the SIR exercise”. According to her, “On account of such mismatches, 1.38 crore people have been given notice.”

The chief minister said even elderly voters had been forced to attend hearings and questioned why Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was sent a notice. She went further, alleging authoritarian social control, saying: “They (BJP) will now decide whether children will be born or not; already they are dictating what people will eat and what they shall not.”

Framing the political moment as an existential struggle, Banerjee declared, “humanity is having to fight against inhumanity today” and invoked the Mahabharata: “We are battling against the Kauravas.”

Drawing inspiration from Bose’s wartime rallying cry, she concluded that his ‘Dilli Chalo’ slogan must be raised again to “re-establish humanity”.

With PTI inputs