Mamata Banerjee moves Supreme Court against Bengal SIR

NEW DELHI: West Bengal main curate Mamata Banerjee has approached the Supreme Court challenging the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls successful the poll-bound state, PTI reported connected Sunday. Banerjee filed the petition connected January 28, naming the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the main electoral serviceman of West Bengal arsenic respondents. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo had earlier announced connected January 3 her volition to determination the apical tribunal against the exercise.The petition is yet to beryllium listed for hearing. The Supreme Court is already seized of aggregate petitions related to the SIR, including those filed by TMC MPs. Earlier, Banerjee had written to main predetermination commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, urging him to halt what she described arsenic an “arbitrary and flawed” revision of electoral rolls successful the state, wherever assembly elections are expected successful April–May.

Escalating her disapproval of the ECI, she warned that continuing the SIR successful its contiguous signifier could pb to “mass disenfranchisement” and undermine the “foundations of democracy.” In a powerfully worded missive dated January 3, Banerjee accused the canvass assemblage of conducting an “unplanned, ill-prepared and advertisement hoc” process riddled with “serious irregularities, procedural violations, and administrative lapses.”