You had a chance to save Bengal: TMC MP to Calcutta HC chief justice at SIR dharna

Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee on Friday launched a sharp attack on the chief justice of the Calcutta High Court, questioning why retired judicial officers were not being appointed to deal with the mounting backlog arising from the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal.

Speaking from chief minister Mamata Banerjee's dharna stage at Kolkata’s Esplanade Metro Channel, Banerjee alleged that the crisis surrounding the voter list revision had placed enormous pressure on officials and citizens alike.

“Why don’t you appoint retired judicial officers? Why is there no supplementary list published these days?” the TMC leader asked, referring to the large number of claims and objections pending under the revision process.

The remarks were made during a sit-in protest launched by the chief minister against the alleged arbitrary deletion of names from the state’s electoral rolls following the SIR exercise. Addressing supporters at the protest site, Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP and the Election Commission of India of conspiring to “disenfranchise Bengali voters”.

“I will expose the BJP-EC conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengali voters,” the TMC supremo said after beginning the sit-in at around 2.15 pm in central Kolkata.

She also alleged that several voters had been wrongly marked as deceased in the revised rolls. “I will present those voters, who have been declared dead by the Election Commission, at this protest site,” she said.

Returning to the issue of the judicial process linked to SIR claims, Kalyan Banerjee said the situation had become alarming, citing heavy workload and the deaths of officials involved in the exercise, including booth-level officers (BLOs).

“When there is such a crisis, when there is so much work pressure, then why don’t you appoint retired judicial officers? You had a chance to save Bengal,” he said.

In an emotional appeal, the TMC MP said he was deeply distressed by the developments. “I am very disheartened that the chief justice of the high court is not appointing more people when he has the power. I feel like crying that people are suffering; they don’t want anything but to see their names in the electoral rolls,” he said.

Banerjee’s comments come against the backdrop of recent directions from the Supreme Court of India allowing both serving and retired judicial officers to oversee the adjudication of claims and objections linked to the voter list revision.

The TMC MP also alleged that residents were being intimidated during the process. “Why are people being threatened that they will have to leave Bengal and go to Bangladesh?” he asked, while praising the chief minister’s stand on the issue. “No one in India is fighting the way didi is fighting.”

The sit-in was announced earlier by TMC national general-secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who had accused the poll panel of conducting a “politically motivated” revision exercise that could disenfranchise lakhs of legitimate voters.

The protest marks a significant escalation in the state's ruling TMC’s confrontation with the ECI ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections. According to official data released on 28 February, as many as 63.66 lakh names — around 8.3 per cent of the electorate — have been deleted since the SIR process began in November last year, reducing the voter base from about 7.66 crore to just over 7.04 crore.

Additionally, more than 60.06 lakh electors have been placed in the 'under adjudication' category, meaning their eligibility will be determined through legal scrutiny in the coming weeks.

Several TMC leaders and MPs including Babul Supriyo and Mahua Moitra, and prospective Rajya Sabha MPs Rajiv Kumar and Menaka Guruswamy, were among those present at the Metro Channel protest to support the agitation, which the party has framed as a fight to protect the democratic rights of voters in the state.