Bongaon: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday slammed the EC for the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls, claiming that voters in Matua-majority areas in the state would be “immediately delisted” if they declared themselves foreigners under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Addressing a rally here before a three-km march to Thakurnagar, Banerjee also vowed to “shake” the BJP’s foundation across the country if she was challenged in Bengal.
The chief minister said “human lives are too precious”, and appealed to people “not to die by suicide under the fear of SIR”.
She claimed that 35-36 deaths had already been linked to panic surrounding the voter revision exercise, including several suicides.
Calling the SIR process chaotic, she asserted the draft rolls would show “the disastrous situation created by the Election Commission and the BJP”.
The CM alleged that the poll body had turned into “a BJP Commission”, which was acting upon “instructions from Delhi”, and that it would use “AI as a tool for manipulation”.
The TMC supremo said she would support the SIR if it was conducted over “two or three years”, and wondered why the exercise was being “rushed coercively within two months” ahead of the 2026 Bengal assembly polls.
She asserted that the Bihar poll outcome was the result of the SIR, as the “Opposition couldn’t gauge the BJP’s game there”.
Banerjee insisted that not a single lawful voter would be struck off the rolls after the enumeration exercise.
“I have here come to assure you, not to ask for votes. We will fight till the end. No genuine voter will be removed,” she said.
Hitting out at the BJP, the CM said the party could deploy “crores of rupees and all central agencies”, but “would still not be able to fight” her politically.
“If you try to target and hit me (politically) in Bengal, I will shake your foundation across the country… A wounded tiger is more dangerous than a living one,” Banerjee asserted.
She claimed that 10 booth-level officers (BLOs) engaged in the SIR process were hospitalised and three others lost their lives, referring to a case in Krishnanagar where a man allegedly blamed the EC before dying.
“Who is responsible for these deaths?” she asked, pointing fingers at the “EC-BJP nexus”.
The chief minister also questioned the rationale behind conducting SIR in BJP-ruled states if the goal was to remove “illegal Bangladeshis”.
“Does that mean you accept there are ‘ghuspaithiyas’ in the double engine-ruled states?” Banerjee said.
At the rally, she reiterated her charge that under the CAA, anyone identifying as a foreigner would “be immediately delisted” as a voter.
“Those who voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are genuine voters. If they are not, the government at the Centre has no right to govern,” she said.
Banerjee also accused BJP-linked groups aligned with the Matua Mahasangha headed by Shantanu Thakur in the region of issuing “misleading certificates” over their Bangladeshi origin.
“They are cheating you. They are writing that you were in Bangladesh. Certificates dated November-December 2025 state you lived there till 2002. This is a big fraud,” she claimed.
She sought to make a contrast with certificates issued by the Ramakrishna Mission. “They never write which country you belong to.”
“Just because someone speaks Bengali, how are they Bangladeshi? I love Bangladesh because our language is the same. Had I not been born in Birbhum, they would have called me Bangladeshi, too,” Banerjee said.
TMC leaders maintain that the Matua community, despite political noise, remains largely aligned with the party because of schemes and welfare programmes launched over the past decade.
The BJP, however, has built an aggressive campaign around the CAA and refugee rights, banking heavily on the Matuas since 2019.
The party’s Bongaon MP, Shantanu Thakur, a key Matua face, has been at loggerheads with the TMC, accusing it of blocking citizenship processes and spreading fear.
The SIR exercise has further deepened the political divide.
Mamata alleges ‘political sabotage’ in helicopter ride cancellation
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accused the BJP of being involved in sabotage in the cancellation of her helicopter ride to Bongaon, warning the opposition party not to “play” with her as she could not be cornered.
Banerjee, who was scheduled to land in Bongaon in North 24 Parganas at 12.30 pm, said she was informed at 10 am that the hired helicopter “would not fly”, forcing her to travel by road.
She eventually reached the place around 2 pm to address a massive rally, amid growing panic among people over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
A top bureaucrat, however, said Banerjee’s planned helicopter ride to Bongaon for a political rally on Tuesday was cancelled after officials discovered that the aircraft assigned for the trip was operating with an expired licence.
Banerjee travelled to Bongaon in the North 24 Parganas district, around 104 km from Kolkata, by road instead.
“For the last seven-eight months, I did not travel by helicopter. Today I had planned to come here and then go to Thakurnagar. Everything was booked in advance. But at 10 in the morning, the message came that the helicopter won’t go!” she said, alleging “political reasons” behind the cancellation.
Turning the inconvenience into a campaign pitch, Banerjee said the road journey allowed her to come into spontaneous contact with people.
“Before elections begin, they have started creating hurdles. But it didn’t help them. In fact, it helped me. On the way, I met so many people. It became a great public outreach,” Banerjee said.
Sharpening her attack, the Trinamool Congress supremo warned the BJP against attempts to intimidate her.
“Don’t try to play with me. You won’t be able to fight and defeat me politically,” she said, noting that she mostly travelled by road and was “not dependent” on helicopters.
“I cannot be cornered,” she declared.
Her remarks came as 35 deaths, some reportedly by suicide, have been linked to fear and anxiety triggered by the SIR verification process in Bengal’s refugee belts.
Promising to “fight till the end”, she accused the BJP and Election Commission of creating an atmosphere of fear through the SIR process and warned that Bengal would resist any attempt to “snatch away” citizens’ rights.
