Mamata approaches SC, demands polls based on 2025 rolls not through SIR
The Statesman | 3 February 2026
The Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has approached the Supreme Court through a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking direction that the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state be conducted on the basis of the electoral rolls revised in 2025, instead of those emerging from the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise being undertaken by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Raising concerns of large-scale and irreversible disenfranchisement, Banerjee contended that the ongoing SIR poses a serious threat to the voting rights of lakhs of eligible electors and would severely undermine the level playing field among political parties ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.
In her plea, the Trinamul Congress leader has also sought directions restraining electoral authorities from calling voters for hearings in cases involving name mismatches or spelling variations falling under the “logical discrepancy” (LD) category during the ongoing revision process. According to her, such discrepancies should instead be corrected suo motu on the basis of existing official records, without subjecting voters to further scrutiny.
She has further prayed that all identity documents issued by competent authorities be uniformly accepted for the purpose of verification.
“The petitioner reasonably apprehends that elections to the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal will be immediately declared thereafter as the term of Assembly comes to an end on or about 07.05.2026. This is the ultimate act of injustice as it will practically freeze the voters list for West Bengal with the large-scale disenfranchisement, errors and omissions caused due to the opaque, hasty, unconstitutional and illegal actions of the ECI … without any time for grievance redressal in view of shortage of time,” the plea by Mamata Banerjee states.
Banerjee has alleged that the SIR is designed to exclude existing voters by compelling them to establish citizenship through documentary proof pegged to an arbitrary cut-off year.
“The entire SIR exercise is an effort at disenfranchising the existing voters on the Electoral Roll by forcing them to prove their citizenship with ‘documentary’ evidence against an arbitrary cut-off date of 2002. This violates the Constitution, the Representation of the People Acts of 1950 and 1951,” says the PIL.
The Chief Minister has also questioned the urgency with which the exercise is being carried out, pointing out that the revision is being completed in under 90 days, close to the scheduled Assembly elections. She has highlighted several operational gaps and inconsistencies in the process, warning that continuation of the exercise would inevitably result in exclusion of vulnerable groups, particularly migrant workers who frequently travel outside the state for seasonal employment.
“ECI has turned the entire SIR exercise into a battlefield for voters, who are scrambling through arbitrary rejection of documents, illogical hearings, inconsistent instructions, opaque rules, shifting stands and complete chaos caused by untested algorithm and software deployed by ECI,” the plea adds.
The petition also accuses the ECI of issuing instructions through informal channels despite directions of the Supreme Court, and of failing to place the list of persons categorised under ‘logical discrepancy’ in the public domain.
“In addition, alarming news have been received from certain districts, including Malda that 20,000 new Logical Discrepancy category cases have been pushed from ‘others’ category to Logical Discrepancy category on the morning of 22.01.2026, which shows a nefarious plan of the Respondent to increase the number of LD cases after order was passed by this Hon’ble Court on 19.01.2026 and then publish a mammoth list of Logical Discrepancy cases. This is highly illegal and in brazen impunity of law and disregard of the order of this Hon’ble Court,” the plea states.
The petition is likely to be listed alongside other challenges pending before the Supreme Court relating to the legality and manner of conduct of the SIR across states.