ECI responds to CM Mamata's letters on SIR, agrees to meet TMC delegation team on Nov 28

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has ramped up her push against the rushed Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists, firing off multiple letters to the Election Commission earlier highlighting massive stress on Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and even linking the process to several deaths. With the door-to-door enumeration kicked off on November 4 and digitization piling on the pressure, Mamata demanded better infrastructure for BLOs and slammed the use of contractual data entry operators as a recipe for errors and bias.

Her second letter on yesterday also questioned the idea of setting up polling stations in private housing complexes, calling it a risky move that could disenfranchise voters ahead of the 2026 state polls. In a swift response, the EC has now greenlit a meeting with a five-member TMC team on November 28 at 11 am, showing they're open to hearing out political parties' gripes.TMC's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee wasted no time, assembling a 10-MP squad earlier to tackle the SIR issues head-on, from form distribution glitches to the overwhelming workload that's allegedly driven some BLOs to despair.

Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien fired off a request for time with Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, and the EC, limiting the delegation to five and asking for names in advance. This comes as the party rallies its workers to flag every snag in the process, with Abhishek stressing the need to lay out all problems—from suicides blamed on the grind to fears of wrongful deletions—during the Delhi showdown.The SIR, meant to clean up rolls covering over 7 crores Bengal voters, has sparked a firestorm, with TMC accusing the EC of cutting corners without enough support, while the BJP cries foul over alleged infiltrators bloating the lists. As draft rolls drop on December 9 and claims pour in till January 8, this meet could ease tensions or fuel more rows, but for now, it's a win for Mamata's vocal campaign to safeguard the process from what she calls "unplanned chaos" that hits the poor hardest.