Will shake up India if you hit me: Mamata Banerjee warns BJP, ECI over SIR

Kolkata: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Election Commission of India (ECI over the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of the state’s electoral roll, saying that the first draft roll would be a “disaster.”

Addressing a public rally at a BJP stronghold in North 24 Parganas district, Banerjee said, “2029 will be a dangerous year for you. Your government won’t stay. Where will you go after that? I will shake up India if you hit me. I will tour the entire nation after the (2026) state polls.”

“Take three years to conduct the SIR. I will help with all my resources. You cannot do it in two months. All sorts of wrong data is being fed. The draft list will be a disaster,” she said before leading a procession along a three-kilometre route.

“In the past, people decided who would form the government. Now the government is deciding who will cast the vote. Aadhaar, PAN, bank documents et al have no value. What the BJP says is followed. It is always Yes Papa. There is no Papa without BJP,” Banerjee said, without naming the ECI which ordered the SIR on October 27.

“Which party did you want to satisfy when you ordered the SIR? They want to defeat Bengal, defeat the Bengali language. But that won’t happen,” Banerjee said at the rally at Bongaon where the Lok Sabha seat has been won twice by BJP’s Shantanu Thakur, the Union minister of state for shipping.

The region has a large Dalit Matua population that came as refugees from East Pakistan after Partition and from Bangladesh after the 1971 Liberation War. Led by community leaders such as Shantanu Thakur, the Matuas helped the BJP win many assembly and Lok Sabha seats in recent years.

Claiming that the SIR will detect at least 10 million Muslim Bangladeshi infiltrators, the BJP has assured the Matuas that they are protected by the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which Parliament passed in 2019.

Bangladeshi non-Muslims are eligible for expedited citizenship under the CAA if they entered India on or before December 31, 2014 to escape religious persecution. The Union home ministry also issued the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025, on September 1 allowing non-Muslim Bangladeshis who entered India on or before December 31, 2024 to stay even without any document or passport.

North 24 Parganas also has a sizable Muslim population and Muslims, who came from Bangladesh illegally and started returning through the district’s Swarupnagar border after the SIR started. They made beelines at the border on Tuesday as well.

Addressing the Matua community, Banerjee said: “If you apply for citizenship under CAA you declare yourself a Bangladeshi. Think on your own. Don’t listen to me or the BJP’s social media campaign. Don’t be scared. Nobody can drive you away as long as I am here. The BJP is scaring people.”

“I have not come here to seek votes but to assure you. The Union home minister says those who came before 2024 won’t be driven out. I am a lawyer too. I am asking, is this not a double standard? Don’t be misled. They cannot hold the polls by excluding genuine voters. After the draft list is published we will help you out,” Banerjee said.

“I am asking the Centre. If the purpose of the SIR is to identify Bangladeshis, then why do it in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh instead of BJP-ruled Assam where elections will be held? Why didn’t you order SIR in Manipur or Mizoram?” she said.

Banerjee targeted a faction of the All India Matua Mahasangha led by Shantanu Thakur for issuing the organisation’s membership card and religion certificate to community members.

“You can issue religion cards and make people members of the Mahasangha but you cannot take money for that. You are telling people that this will automatically make them citizens. The documents will be useless if challenged,” said Banerjee.

Banerjee said the BJP was nowhere in sight when Binapani Debi, the matriarch of the Thakur family and commonly referred to as Baroma, fell ill several times before her death in 2019.

“Where were you when Baroma used to fall sick? I took her to a hospital in Kolkata six times. I met her even a day before she passed away. We renovated the home of the Thakur family and even set up a university named after the community’s founders Sri Harichand Thakur and Sri Guruchand Thakur,” said Banerjee.

Addressing the larger Hindu community, Banerjee said her government developed all the famous temples and will be setting up a Durga Angan at Rajarhat and a Mahakal temple in Siliguri.

“We don’t believe in caste and creed. The woman who cooks at my home belongs to a scheduled caste community,” she said.

“The BJP should stop playing games with me. You can’t catch me in my game. You may spend as much money as you want but you can’t beat me. The SIR is being done in an unplanned manner. Several booth level officers (BLOs) have died. A BLO left a suicide note blaming the SIR. 36 people have died out of fear,” Banerjee said.

“They have created AI. If Mamata Banerjee’s name is deleted from the list then it will be replaced by another Mamata Banerjee. This is the BJP’s new plan. They use lots of tricks. They keep EVMs unoperational for hours on polling day so that voters get tired and leave. The Border Security Force scares voters in the border areas,” she said.

“Paramilitary forces guarding the borders, railways, aviation ministry are all controlled by the Centre. And yet you said there are ghuspetias (infiltrators) in Bihar. They (the opposition) lost the elections because of some weaknesses but BJP’s real target is Bengal. BJP will lose the next poll in Gujarat. I predict from now,” Banerjee added.

Bengal BJP unit president Samik Bhattacharya countered Banerjee.

“Mamata Banerjee has been tried, tested and rejected by the people. She knows her defeat is imminent. She may try to mislead a section of people but cannot hoodwink the entire population,” said Bhattacharya.

“As far as infiltrators from Bangladesh are concerned, our stand is very clear. They will be detected and their names will be deleted from the electoral roll before they are deported,” he added.

The chief minister also alleged that she could not reach the venue on time because the helicopter she was supposed to board was denied flight permission.

“I was supposed to be here at 12.30 pm but I was informed that the helicopter cannot fly. The elections have not started yet but confrontation has begun,” she said.

Senior government officials, however, said the helicopter assigned for the trip had an expired licence and the operator was issued a show-cause notice. Banerjee had to travel 104 km by road.