Hitting out at the central government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) over special intensive revision of electoral rolls, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday drew parallels between demonetisation and the SIR drive, and said while the former was 'notebandi', the latter is 'votebandi'. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo made the remarks while speaking to reporters in Siliguri.
Banerjee urged the apex poll body to withdraw the exercise, pondering what was the need to conduct the SIR drive just before the elections. Dubbing it as 'super emergency', the West Bengal chief minister said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could jail her or slit her throat for criticising the SIR, but it should not snatch the rights of people to vote.
"The BJP-led central government is harassing people in the name of SIR. Just like demonetisation was notebandi', SIR is votebandi'," Banerjee was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. "I do not understand the hurry in conducting SIR just before elections. The EC must immediately stop this exercise. The revision of electoral rolls cannot be completed in two or three months. It is being carried out forcibly."
Banerjee has been a vocal critic of the SIR drive and has often taken potshots on the central government and the apex poll body. Last week, the SIR drive commenced in nine states and three union territories (UTs), and the poll body has said that it will release the draft electoral rolls on December 9, and the final electoral rolls will be published on February 7.
The 12 states and UTs where the second round of SIR will be conducted are the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Among these, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and West Bengal will go to polls in 2026. In Assam, another state where polls are due in 2026, the revision of electoral rolls will be announced separately as a Supreme Court-supervised exercise to verify citizenship is underway in the state. Also, a separate provision of the Citizenship Act was applicable to Assam.
After Bihar, this is the second round of SIR. The state's final voter list with nearly 7.42 crore names was published on September 30.
(With inputs from PTI)
