West Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari along with other BJP MLAs present a memorandum regarding Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Kolkata to Governor CV Anand Bose. | Photo credit: PTI
After weeks of insisting that the Trinamool Congress was exaggerating reports of harassment during the Special Intensive Review (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, the state unit of the BJP has changed its stance. He now admits that people in the state face harassment, but accuses a section of election officials in collaboration with the ruling Trinamool of “deliberately” making mistakes and issuing notices to harass voters.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari and several other BJP MLAs submitted a memorandum to Governor CV Anand Bose on Monday (February 2, 2026) titled “Deliberate harassment by a section of EROS, AERO and BLO of common people in collaboration with Trinamool SIR and I-PAC.
This is a departure from the BJP’s official position that allegations of harassment during the exercise were blown out of proportion by the ruling Trinamool Congress. The memorandum, which seeks disciplinary action against erring election officials, comes as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visits Delhi and sharpens her attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI).
‘deliberate errors’
In a memorandum, the BJP MLAs alleged that a section of Electoral Registration Officers (ERO), Additional Electoral Registration Officers (AERO) and Booth Clerks (BLOS) individually and collectively “deliberately made mistakes or irregularities such as mistakes in spelling of names or surnames and issued notices to voters”.
According to BJP leaders, it has been observed in many cases that “EROs and eros across the state have appointed contractual employees for the SIR review process or for issuing notices and conducting hearings, which is in total violation of the ECI guidelines”.
The memorandum added that despite ECI’s repeated requests to the West Bengal Chief Secretary and the Finance Minister, no data entry operators have been appointed for the SIR process. During the earlier SIR in Bihar, sufficient number of data entry operators were appointed by the state government, the government said.
She also alleged that political leaders and goons of Trinamool Congress were present at SIR hearing centers and made loud political speeches through microphones, which was against ECI guidelines.
BJP discomfort
In the first phase of SIR, 58 thousand names were removed from the state’s draft electoral roll, taking the number of voters in the state to 7.08 million from 7.66 million. Due to alleged “logical inconsistencies” in their forms, there were violent protests over about 1.36 lakh notices issued to voters.
The West Bengal BJP’s displeasure with the SIR has been visible in the past few months, with party state president Samik Bhattacharya repeatedly making statements targeting Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Mr. Bhattacharya demanded that the CEC conduct a spot inspection to review how the SIR process is being done in the state.
In the third week of January, BJP and Trinamool supporters clashed over submission of Form 7 under the SIR process. The BJP state president said the party would not allow assembly elections to be held in West Bengal unless the party’s demands and objections regarding the draft voter list were respected.
Published – 03 Feb 2026 21:00 IST
