4 months ago
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Raising the contented of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) notices being sent to salient personalities, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote yet different missive to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar connected Saturday (January 10, 2026), alleging that not lone common citizens but also eminent personalities are being harassed during the exercise.
“It is simply a substance of profound shame that Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen — a nonagenarian and a globally respected intelligence — has been asked to look before the Election Commission officials to establish his credentials. Similarly, eminent and wide respected personalities specified arsenic renowned writer and awardee Joy Goswami, fashionable movie histrion and Member of Parliament Shri Deepak Adhikari, international cricketer Mohammed Shami and the Maharaj of Bharat Sevashram Sangha person besides been subjected to this unplanned, insensitive and inhuman process,” the Chief Minister said successful the letter.
A announcement for the SIR hearing was sent to Professor Sen earlier this month, but aboriginal the ECI issued an order, saying that overseas citizens are exempted from the SIR hearing.
Ms. Banerjee said that these were lone a fewer examples of known personalities, and determination are galore much who person been enactment to specified undue harassment. This was the 4th missive which Ms. Banerjee wrote to Mr. Kumar since the commencement of the SIR. The past missive was sent astir 1 week agone connected January 3.
The Chief Minister besides added that “logical discrepancies” — which are, successful reality, “entirely illogical” — are being selectively targeted in certain constituencies with political bias. “The so-called logical discrepancy numbers are expanding by the day. It has been reported that the portal being utilized for West Bengal is apparently different from that utilized successful different States,” she wrote successful the letter.
As in her earlier letters, the Chief Minister referred to deaths allegedly linked to the SIR exercise. “It is shocking that an workout which should person been constructive and productive has already seen 77 deaths, with 4 attempts to termination and 17 persons falling sick and requiring hospitalisation. This is attributed to fear, intimidation and disproportionate workload owed to unplanned workout undertaken by the ECI,” she wrote.
Ms. Banerjee also wrote successful the missive that the objective of SIR seems neither of correction nor of inclusion successful the electoral rolls, but solely of deletion and of exclusion. “This is unprecedented, profoundly unfortunate and strikes astatine the precise halfway of our antiauthoritarian polity, one that thrives connected the ideals and values enshrined successful our Constitution,” she pointed out.
The Chief Minister’s missive besides came with a hand-written note by her to the CEC, which stated, “Though I cognize you won’t reply or clarify, but my work is to pass you of the details”.
Four peculiar rotation observers
Meanwhile, successful different development, the ECI appointed 4 much peculiar rotation observers for overseeing the SIR workout successful West Bengal. The recently appointed observers are Sandeep Rewaji Rathore, Director, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Ratan Biswas, Census Director, Tripura, Dr. Shailesh, Deputy Secretary, the National Health Authority and Vikash Singh, Director, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. This determination follows the previous deployment of 18 roll observers and one special roll observer to oversee the SIR process successful the State.
A Trinamool Congress delegation met West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal and flagged that even now, ill and elderly citizens are being called for hearings. The delegation comprised Ministers Pulak Roy, Shashi Panja and Birbaha Hansda, MLA Seuli Saha, and MP Partha Bhowmick.
“We repeatedly raised another important issue. While an bid has been issued for radical staying and moving extracurricular the state oregon extracurricular the State, thing has been done truthful acold for migrant labourers. This needs to beryllium addressed immediately,” Mr. Bhowmick said.
