Mamata Banerjee Denies Accepting SIR Voter Forms Despite Party Newspaper Claims

Mamata Banerjee Livid After Trinamool Mouthpiece Reports She Filled SIR Form

Kolkata: Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee found herself in an awkward position after her party's official newspaper Jago Bangla reported that she had personally received voter enumeration forms, contradicting her public stance against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists.

The Chief Minister, who has been a vocal critic of the SIR process, took to Facebook to issue a firm denial of these claims. In her post, she clarified that while election officials had visited her residence office, she had not personally accepted any forms.

"Unless every person in Bengal is filling the form, I cannot and will not fill any form myself," Banerjee stated emphatically in her social media post.

She further denounced the reports as "completely false, misleading and purposefully propagated," though she refrained from directly naming her party's publication.

The BJP quickly seized on the contradiction, questioning whether the Chief Minister was being dishonest or if her party's mouthpiece had published inaccurate information. BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul suggested that Banerjee "wanted to say that until the names of Rohingyas, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are included in the voter list, she would not fill SIR."

The controversy emerged just one day after Banerjee led a massive rally in Kolkata against the SIR initiative, which was launched by the Election Commission on November 4. The Trinamool Congress and other opposition parties have characterized the revision process as a "silent, invisible rigging" designed to disenfranchise their supporters and benefit the BJP.

During Tuesday's rally, Banerjee had accused the BJP of targeting Bengali speakers, stating, "Whoever is talking in Bangla is branded as Bangladeshi. These people have not fought the fight for freedom... where was BJP at that time?"

The BJP has countered by alleging that Banerjee's government has issued "backdated" and "forged" documents extensively. They have urged the Election Commission to exercise caution when verifying citizenship in the state and have suggested that certain documents—including birth certificates, residence certificates, and caste certificates—should be scrutinized more carefully.

With crucial assembly elections approaching in Bengal, where the BJP has been steadily gaining ground, this controversy highlights the intensifying political tensions in the state.