Mamata Banerjee flags alleged voter deletions in Supreme Court SIR hearing

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appeared before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, challenging the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state

Appearing before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi, Banerjee sought permission to personally address the court

The Chief Justice allowed her 15 minutes to speak, after Banerjee requested five minutes and appealed to the judges to “save democracy.”

Accompanied by a legal team led by senior advocate Shyam Divan, Banerjee began her submission by thanking the court and the Bar, and quoted Rabindranath Tagore during her remarks

Banerjee alleged that the SIR exercise was being used to selectively delete voters, claiming the process was focused on deletion rather than inclusion

She told the Bench that despite writing six letters to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, she had received no response

Raising concerns over alleged wrongful deletions, she presented photographs in court and cited cases of married women being removed from voter lists due to surname changes

The Chief Minister questioned the speed of the SIR process, claiming a revision that typically takes two years was being completed in three months, and alleged that West Bengal was being targeted

Banerjee further claimed that around 58 lakh names had been deleted and alleged that micro observers were overriding Booth Level Officers (BLOs) during the exercise

After hearing her submissions, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Election Commission on her plea and sought replies from the EC and the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer by February 9