West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee versus Election Commission of India

It’s not yet clear if the Election Commission of India (ECI) has taken disciplinary action against Mousam Sarkar, the assistant electoral registration officer (AERO) from West Bengal who resigned on 8 January after publicly protesting against the SIR process.

In his resignation letter addressed to the state's chief electoral officer, the block development officer stated that many of the discrepancies in names, spellings and dates that had occurred during the Intensive Revision of 2002 in Bengal were corrected by voters using Form 8, in accordance with ECI rules. Ditto in cases of age-related discrepancies.

Those same discrepancies were now being flagged as ‘logical discrepancies’. Summoning voters for ‘hearings’ on these grounds was both unnecessary and unfair, said Sarkar.

The West Bengal CEO told media that as an employee of the ECI, the AERO could have raised his concerns through ‘proper channels’. By airing his grievance publicly, he was, it seems, guilty of gross insubordination and had made himself liable for suitable punishment.

The case of the recalcitrant AERO is among various issues flagged by chief minister Mamata Banerjee. The escalating confrontation over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has seen the chief minister shooting off as many as five letters to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in the first fortnight of January.

Banerjee has accused both the ECI and the CEO of sharing lists of deleted voters only with the BJP. She pointed out that the CEO had passed on instructions to revise and change processes on WhatsApp. She flagged that vehicles had been intercepted in Bankura and several other districts, carrying BJP leaders and thousands of pre-filled forms (Form 7) meant to delete voters in bulk.

In its own guidelines issued in October 2025, the ECI had stipulated that no BLA (booth-level agent) may submit more than 50 Form 7 applications per day prior to the publication of the draft list, and no more than 10 per day thereafter.

How, then, were thousands of these forms being carted around? And why has the ECI deployed micro-observers only in West Bengal? (Her party believes micro-observers have been pressurising officials to delete names.) If a BLO is mandated to visit each voter three times during the SIR, and the ECI has already obtained, completed and signed enumeration forms, what justifies calling voters to offices located 10–15 km or more away?

She has also exhorted people to demand receipts for documents submitted and objected to senior citizens being summoned for ‘hearings’.

Among those summoned were Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, a host of sportspersons who represented India internationally, celebrated poet Joy Goswami, 104-year-old Murshidabad voter Haru Sheikh, and members of Parliament, past and present. That they have to establish their bonafides and correct minor errors made in the past, often by ECI officials themselves, is shocking.

Even more distressing is that lakhs of voters — who are not VIPs — have no option but to verify themselves the hard way. The unusually biting cold this year has added to the distress, with several voters reported to have fallen dead at the camps.

The ECI’s identification of 54 lakh ‘unmapped’ voters and 1.3 crore cases of ‘logical discrepancies’, coupled with its insistence on physical verification at camps, has led to confusion and chaos. By creating various categories of voters, the ECI has turned the verification process into a nightmare.

There are also reports that verification and hearing notices have been selectively issued to voter concentrations in specific constituencies, a charge made by CPI(M) state secretary Mohammad Salim. Additionally, reports indicate that carloads of Forms 7 and 8 — used to object to the inclusion of a voter’s name and to seek corrections of particulars — have been found.

At last count, only 6.6 per cent of 1.3 crore voters who are to be ‘heard’ and ‘detected-deleted-deported’ or reinserted into the voters list have been dealt with by the ECI. With the deadline of 7 February around the corner, Mamata Banerjee has demanded an extension.

The BJP has accused the Trinamool cadre of intimidating booth-level officers and slammed the Election Commission for failing to ensure their safety. Party leaders have also blamed the ECI for targeting whistleblowers and demanded that the chief election commissioner personally visit the state to hear grievances.