NEW DELHI: “You are a nominated official, but I am an elected representative … ” The Trinamool Congress’s offensive against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has set the stage for an all-out confrontation over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls ahead of upcoming assembly elections in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, who led a Trinamool delegation to the Election Commission on Wednesday, accused the CEC of “losing temper” and “raising fingers at party members. Abhishek dared the CEC to respond to his allegations.”They think that by raising their voice and speaking aggressively, everyone will be silenced. When we started speaking, he began losing his temper. He tried to stop some of us and pointed fingers at me. I then stated that you are a nominated official, but I am an elected representative. You are answerable to your masters, but I am answerable to the masses who elected me, for whom we have come here to ensure that no legitimate voter is deleted from the list… If he has the courage, let him release the footage. I am standing very close to the ECI office,” Abhishek said standing at the gate of the Election Commission office.”Gyanesh Kumar must be hearing what I am saying to the media right now. If he has the courage, he should come down, face the media, and rebut every point I am making, rather than making selective leaks after 8 pm. What is stopping him? Does he think the people of Bengal are his subservient? Apart from two-three questions, he has failed. Does he think the people of Bengal, and we MPs, ministers, and MLAs elected by the people, are bonded labourers or slaves?” the Trinamool MP asked, targeting the CEC.Abhishek Banerjee’s dig on selective leaks referred to the party’s last meeting with the poll body on November 28. The Trinamool leader claimed that they had asked the Election Commission five questions in that meeting, but didn’t receive a single precise answer to any of them. The Trinamool leader had accused the Election Commission of selectively leaking information to some journalists, claiming that they had answered every question. In return, the Election Commission accused the Trinamool of intimidating its electoral staff in the state.The Election Commission (EC) officials said that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation was told that intimidation of any electoral staff by ground-level political representatives and workers will not be tolerated and that the West Bengal government should immediately release the enhanced honorarium to each BLO.Draft rolls for West Bengal released by the ECI in December show that 58,20,899 names, about 7.59 per cent of the electorate, have been provisionally deleted due to reasons such as death, permanent migration or untraceability. The Trinamool has raised concerns over the scale of deletions, alleging possible disenfranchisement. Also, around 1.36 crore entries have also been flagged for “logical discrepancies”, while 30 lakh voters were categorised as unmapped – a significant percentage of whom are likely to be called for verification hearings. The timeline for final publication of electoral rolls in the state is February 14, 2026.Abhishek Banerjee questioned the list of “logical discrepancies” made by the EC and accused the poll body of weaponsing the voter list to help the BJP. The TMC leader demanded that the list of voters under the “logical discrepancy” category be published and the methodology and legal authority used to create this category be disclosed. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has already claimed that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise was a huge “scam” being conducted with the help of artificial intelligence, and has warned that her party will gherao the Election Commission’s office in Delhi if the name of even a single legitimate voter is deleted from the electoral rolls.Trinamool Congress has said that it will not accept the final voter list if it has “discrepancies” and if needed “it would fight it legally.” Clearly SIR, which is already in the centre of a political storm, is set for a rough ride in West Bengal with the Trinamool Congress piling unrelenting pressure on the Election Commission. Go to Source
