Mamata writes to CEC, seeks halt to SIR in West Bengal

Upping the ante on SIR, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote a strongly worded letter to CEC Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday, asking him to immediately halt the exercise that she claimed was “chaotic, coercive and dangerous”.
Banerjee mentioned that she has “time and again” raised concerns over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state and is now “compelled to write” to the chief election commissioner because the situation has reached a “deeply alarming stage”. She alleged that the SIR in Bengal is being carried out in an “unplanned, dangerous” manner that has “crippled the process from day one”.
The chief minister accused the Election Commission of thrusting the SIR upon officials and citizens “without basic preparedness, adequate planning or clear communication”, claiming that critical gaps in training, confusion over mandatory documents and the “near-impossibility” of BLOs meeting voters during working hours had rendered the entire exercise “structurally unsound”.
She urged the CEC to “intervene decisively” to halt the ongoing exercise, stop “coercive” measures, provide proper training and support, and “thoroughly reassess” the present methodology and timelines.
“If this path is not corrected without delay, the consequences for the system, the officials and the citizens will be irreversible,” she wrote, calling this a moment that demands “responsibility, humanity and decisive corrective action”.