SIR hearing process ‘devoid of application of mind’: Mamata

The Chief Minister claimed that the exercise has led to 77 deaths, four suicide attempts, and 17 hospitalisations, which she attributed to fear, intimidation, and excessive workload

- PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Saturday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has been turned into an exercise to exclude voters rather than correct records.

In her third letter to Kumar since the SIR began, Banerjee accused the Election Commission of political bias, insensitivity, and highhandedness during the exercise.

"The hearing process has become largely mechanical, driven purely by technical data and completely devoid of the application of mind, sensitivity and human touch," she wrote in the three-page letter.

She said that the exercise's aim seemed "neither of correction nor of inclusion ... but solely of deletion and of exclusion", alleging that the process undermines the democratic and constitutional framework.