LOOKEAST

Prasanta Paul |

A phoenix–like ghost has suddenly surfaced from a long–buried coffin to tease and trouble chief minister Mamata Banerjee in her bid to ascend the throne of West Bengal for the fourth time in succession.

A confident ‘Didi’ has been endeavoring hard to conceal her diffident mood despite the pompous show of her entrenched vox populi around the stage (the recent dharna) and on the street. So, what has been ailing the Trinamool Congress chief spokesperson–cum–supremo ?

■ Justice Joymalya Bagchi

First is of course the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) of the electoral roll; and to add salt to the wound, a series of chastisement from the Supreme Court on various issues which the state has taken to the top court, have unsettled the TMC boat.

In the first instance, after deletion of 65 lakh voters’ names from the roll during the preliminary exercise, names of another 60 lakh had to be referred to judicial discretion after the TMC leadership thought it just to seek redressal against the EC move from the top court.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi’s observation on Tuesday put a significant spanner in the TMC’s poll strategy when he made it clear that fate of those whose names would not figure in the supplementary list within 6th of April next, cannot vote in the 2026 assembly election

The latest official report quoting the Election Commission of India (ECI) said that at least eight lakh names have been deleted from the first supplementary list that was released by the Commission on 22nd March, 2026. This takes the number of the total deletion to 73 lakh; more supplementary lists are scheduled to be announced by the EC in the coming days.

Hon’ble judge of the Division Bench Mr Justice Joymalya Bagchi’s observation on Tuesday put a significant spanner in the TMC’s poll strategy when he made it clear that fate of those whose names would not figure in the supplementary list within 6th of April next, cannot vote in the 2026 assembly election.

According to him, the entire SIR process needs to be completed within 6th of April as the first phase of filing of nominations is slated to be over on that day. But the EC has failed to provide any guarantee to this end as lakhs and lakhs of adjudication have been pending before the judges and the tribunal who are engaged with the task of resolving the issue of inclusion in the final voters’ list.

■ West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during her sit–in protest in Kolkata on March 6, 2026 against “arbitrary deletions” from the post–SIR electoral rolls in the State | PTI

Secondly, the Supreme Court Chief Justice Hon’ble Surya Kant lobbed a shell at the TMC lawyer Kalyan Banerjee posing “Thousands and thousands of names have been deleted from the voters’ list during the SIR process in other states as well and there has been no problem there. But why has the same issue been causing so much trouble in West Bengal ?”

Obviously, the couple of questions raised by both the judges in the top court must have left the TMC red–faced; the party should have been regretting now its decision to seek redressal of its grievance on SIR at the Supreme Court.

The top court’s earlier order directing the district judges of the state as well as from neighbouring states to adjudicate the contending issues of SIR without interference of the EC had given the TMC some breathing space; the TMC leadership quickly celebrated it as its victory against the EC’s alleged highhandedness.

After deletion of 65 lakh voters’ names from the roll during the preliminary exercise, names of another 60 lakh had to be referred to judicial discretion after the TMC leadership thought it just to seek redressal against the EC move from the top court

However, the celebration soon vanished into thin air after the judges engaged in adjudication refused to budge despite alleged pressures from the local BDOs and BROs against adopting strict rules and regulations during the review exercise.

On top of this, the Supreme Court’s slamming of the TMC government on Monday (23rd march 2026) has simply left the party flabbergasted; the three judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M Pancholi rapped the Mamata Banerjee government for “obstinately pursuing an anti–development agenda and being hell–bent on impeding the completion of the Kolkata Metro Orange Line”.

In a hard–hitting judgement that absolutely robbed the Mamata Banerjee administration of any trace of prestige whatsoever, the bench rapped it saying “Calcutta High Court has been extremely magnanimous. This was a fit case where your (West Bengal’s) chief secretary, DGP and other authorities should have been subjected to some kind of action” for stalling a public infrastructure initiative on such flimsy excuses as festival.

General Elections and bye-elections 2026: ECI holds Inter-State Border Meetings ✅

Meeting also held with Multi-Departmental Committee on Election Intelligence ✅

Read more : https://t.co/bxAeZNo34n pic.twitter.com/LJNT9gqrUJ

— Election Commission of India (@ECISVEEP) March 24, 2026

Going further, the bench sounded a categorical caution to the state authorities: “If Election Commission has no objection to the work which was ongoing under HC supervision prior to announcement of elections, we will not allow you to create elections as another bogey to stop development. Do not politicise the issue.”

“What prevented you from complying with the (HC) directions,” the bench asked, leaving the bunch of TMC lawyers completely mute. The Calcutta High Court had in its earlier order of December 23, 2025, directed the state government to inform the Metro Railway by January 06,2026 for about three days or two consecutive weekends when traffic could be diverted for completing the construction work on the Metro line.

But the Mamata Banerjee government ignored the HC directive and instead, approached the top court for a revision of the order, pleading that festivals were round the corner and work could not be taken up.

The slew of judgements including another on I–PAC raid case have come in handy for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party to train guns at the TMC and insert gaping holes at the latter’s plank of development agenda in the state.

And if the SIR ghost continues its devil dance at various places including the party strongholds, it will definitely not augur well for TMC in the ensuing polls. ■

Prasanta Paul served Deccan Herald as the Chief of Bureau, Calcutta for nearly two decades before switching to work with various TV channels such as Al-Jazeera, CNN, German TV and CBS. Mr. Paul who accompanied former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on his overseas tour of Singapore and other Asian countries, travelled extensively to Bhutan, Sikkim and Darjeeling besides other Northeastern states.