SIR IN WEST BENGAL: CLAIMS VS REALITY

by Sujay Dasgupta

3rd Year,
Department of Media Science, TISL

Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was a kind of googly thrown by the bowler ECI months before the WB Assembly Polls of 2026. It was initially for the batsmen of fake voters, the ruling party of the state, as well as incoming Bangladeshi illegal immigrants. Starting in November 2025, the process was extremely intense in the state, as BLOs (Booth Level Officers), political parties, and voters were in a rush to complete the entire SIR process, from filling up enumeration forms to submission. Several instances of chaos took place around the SIR process, with protests and violence during the process in various parts of the state.

But the SIR system kind of collapsed when the Draft List was released in February 2026. Despite filling all the forms and linking proper names from the 2002 SIR list, many voters found their names deleted from the list or placed under adjudication. Questions arose. The question was: who was behind these processes? Was it BLOs, DEOs (District Election Officers), EROs (Election Returning Officers), the CEO (Chief Electoral Officer), or the CEC (Chief Election Commissioner)? Many voters whose names were deleted started to question the entire ECI mechanism, asking who was responsible for removing names from the list in such an irresponsible manner without any cross-check or proper verification.

The process was questioned by Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee. She turned again into a street fighter and came onto the roads of Kolkata over the malfunctioning of the SIR process in the state. She alleged that the ECI was working on behalf of the BJP government to benefit them in the 2026 WB Assembly polls after their defeat in 2021.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on the other hand, questioned Mamata Banerjee for her attempts to stop the SIR process, which they described as “sanitizing” the electoral roll that had remained untouched for the last 24 years. BJP State President Shamik Bhattacharya alleged that the TMC carried out multiple instances of booth rigging and chhappa voting (false voting) to win seats in the 2021 Assembly polls, the 2022 Municipal polls, and even in the 2023 Panchayat polls in the state. Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari claimed that Mamata and her party workers issued voter cards to include Bangladeshi illegal immigrants in the electoral rolls just before the 2021 polls, and that the SIR process was actually cleaning them out, while the TMC was acting as a speedbreaker to this “sanitization” process.

As we discuss the SIR process in the state, the first phase of the WB polls has already been completed, with less violence, attacks, threats, and booth capturing compared to the polls of 2019 and 2021. It is also the time of a record-breaking voter turnout of 92.72%, which has created history. The turnout is the state’s highest ever since independence. Many analyses say that it is the ECI’s proper management that made this turnout possible, even in rural Bengal.

Still, the second phase of the polls remains. However, the question still remains: what will ultimately happen to the voters who are waiting for resolution? There is no foolproof answer yet, either from the judicial branch or from the ECI. There is a lot to see in the future.

Image courtesy: Press Information Bureau, Government of India/Election Commission