3 months ago
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After weeks of insisting that the Trinamool Congress was exaggerating reports of harassment during the peculiar intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls successful West Bengal, the State portion of the BJP has changed its stance. It present admits that radical successful the State are facing harassment, but blames a conception of canvass officials successful collusion with the ruling Trinamool for “deliberately” making mistakes and issuing notices to harass voters.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari and respective different BJP MLAs submitted a memorandum to Governor C.V. Ananda Bose connected Monday (February 2, 2026), titled, “Deliberate harassment by a conception of EROS, AEROs, and BLOs of communal radical successful collusion with Trinamool Congress and I-PAC during SIR.”
This is simply a departure from the BJP’s authoritative stance that claims of harassment during the workout were blown retired of proportionality by the State’s ruling Trinamool Congress. The memorandum, which seeks to initiate disciplinary proceedings against erring canvass officials, comes astatine a clip erstwhile Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is visiting Delhi and sharpening her onslaught connected the Election Commission of India (ECI).
‘Deliberate mistakes’
In the memorandum, BJP MLAs claimed that a conception of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), Additional Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs), and Booth Level Officers (BLOS) were individually and collectively “deliberately making mistakes oregon discrepancies, specified arsenic errors successful the spelling of names oregon surnames, and issuing notices to harass voters”.
According to the BJP leaders, it has been observed successful galore cases that “EROs and AEROs crossed the State person appointed contractual employees for the scrutiny process of SIR oregon for issuing notices and conducting hearings, which is wholly contrary to the ECI guidelines.”
The memorandum added that contempt repeated requests from the ECI to the West Bengal Chief Secretary and Finance Secretary, nary information introduction operators person been appointed for the SIR process. During the earlier SIR successful Bihar, a capable fig of information introduction operators were appointed by the State Government, it said.
It besides claimed that Trinamool Congress governmental leaders and goons were contiguous astatine SIR proceeding centres, making large governmental speeches done microphones, successful usurpation of the ECI’s guidelines.
BJP discomfort
In the archetypal signifier of the SIR, 58 lakh names were removed from the State’s draught electoral roll, bringing the fig of electors successful the State to 7.08 crore from 7.66 crore. There were convulsive protests implicit astir 1.36 crore notices issued to electors owed to alleged “logical discrepancies” successful their forms.
The West Bengal BJP’s discomfort with the SIR has been disposable implicit the past fewer months, with the party’s State president Samik Bhattacharya making repeated statements targeting Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Mr. Bhattacharya had demanded that the CEC should marque a spot inspection to reappraisal however the SIR process is being carried retired successful the State.
In the 3rd week of January, BJP and Trinamool supporters clashed over the submission of Form 7 nether the SIR process. The State BJP president had said the enactment would not let the Assembly elections to instrumentality spot successful West Bengal if the party’s claims and objections related to the draught voters’ database were not honoured.
