The Trinamool Congress won’t give an inch when it comes to the Special Intensive Exercise, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Wednesday as she accused the rival Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to “omit names” from voter lists.

Speaking at the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad foundation day, both Mamata and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee said they would stridently oppose the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, which they claim is meant to “deprive citizens” of their rights. The rally comes months ahead of Assembly polls.

The TMC has been claiming that the electoral roll revision is a variation of the National Register of Citizens – a claim that both leaders repeated at Thursday’s rally.

“The BJP has brought over 500 teams to Bengal from other states to conduct surveys for omitting the names of voters. Don’t give any information to unknown persons who come to your doorstep and ask anything. They may try to do NRC in the name of SIR. But as long as I live, I will not allow them to delete a single voter in Bengal,” Mamata said at the rally, also accusing the Election Commission of India of partisanship.

Mamata also brought up the attacks on migrant workers in other states, attributing them to the BJP – which she called a “loaded virus”. Referring to an alleged attack on a migrant worker in Mumbai earlier this week, she said she would not tolerate “any humiliation of the Bangla language and the people of Bengal”.

At the same time, she also accused the rival Left – especially the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — of conniving with the BJP. Invoking the recent controversy involving a Kerala draft textbook’s depiction of Bengal freedom icon Subhas Chandra Bose, Mamata accused the CPI (M) – the ruling party in the south state – of “shaking hands with BJP”.

The controversial portion of the draft textbook, which claimed Bose had fled from India fearing the British, has now been amended, with the Kerala government blaming it on a “historical mistake”.

“They [CPI-M] are shameless,” Mamata said at the rally.

In his speech, Abhishek accused the BJP of “trying to snatch away the people’s right to vote” through the SIR.

“Once, the people of India chose their government. Today, the government is handpicking its voters. Our fight against SIR will not stop. If even one person is denied their right, 10 lakh Bengalis will march to Delhi, gherao Rajpath, and prove their might,” he said.

All agencies “are against the Trinamool”, he claimed.

“Everyone is against Trinamool: the judiciary, BJP, central agencies, the ED, the press, the CBI, the EC. But 10 crore Bengalis are for Trinamool. Come fight us: 10 crore Bengalis on one side and the Centre’s ED & CBI on the other. But I promise we will win more than we won the last time,” he claimed, challenging the BJP to “cross 50 and show”.

He also invoked rape and murder of a woman doctor in the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in August last year. In January, the prime suspect, civic volunteer Sanjay Roy, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison,

In his speech, Abhishek Banerjee questioned the decision to withhold assent to the Aparajita Women and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, 2024, passed by the West Bengal Assembly in the aftermath of the incident. The Bill is currently pending with the President.

“We had passed the Aparajita Bill in the Cabinet and in the Vidhan Sabha, and sent it to the Governor in the first week of September. Later, it was sent to the President, but even after a year, the Bill has not been given assent. Those who had objected to it, their objective was not that the accused should be punished, but to destroy the health infrastructure that protects the interests of the poor and on which the Mamata Banerjee government has been working on since 2011,” he claimed, wondering why rivals such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Congress, and the BJP were “not raising their voices against it”.