In West Bengal, election season does not start with a formal notification but with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s rallying cry on July 21 – the Shaheed Diwas (Martyr’s Day).
What began as a solemn remembrance of young cadres of youth Congress, who lost their lives to police firing during a protest demanding electoral reforms in 1993, has now evolved into Didi’s informal campaign opener for every crucial poll battle – from Lok Sabha to Vidhan Sabha.
This year, as the countdown to 2026 begins, Mamata Banerjee is expected to sharpen her political pitch once again ahead of the crucial poll battle. And, among key issues likely to dominate the state’s political narrative, and also her campaign, would be the “threat” from across state lines – the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar, now tipped to be replicated in Bengal.
According to sources in the TMC’s rank and file, on July 21, Banerjee will take the stage and raise her speech against the “discrimination” against Bengali migrant workers outside the state and the alleged attempt by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to “cancel Bengal’s legitimate voters” by “manipulating” the voter list.
With the 2026 assembly election on the horizon, Bengal’s most watched political performance later this month will be shadowed by a familiar anxiety – identity, citizenship, and the integrity of the voter roll.
The stage is being set for a ticking bomb, which is the apprehension of the Election Commission’s decision to bring the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) model to Bengal. The party has already spoken against the possibility that the revision in Bihar may lead to mass deletion of voters over alleged duplication, mismatched addresses, and suspect documentation.
Irrespective of electoral-political narratives, Bengal, with its porous international borders, has remained deeply entangled with migration history and its politically sensitive border-districts like Cooch Behar, Dinajpur, Malda, Nadia, Murshidabad and North 24 Parganas have always been on the line.
WHY IS SIR AMMUNITION FOR MAMATA?
For Banerjee, this is not just an electoral reform or electoral roll revision, it is ready-made ammunition.
The last time a similar spectre loomed, during the debates over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship (Amendment) Act debates, she turned it into a full-scale political war.
She hit the streets, declared “No NRC in Bengal” and painted the BJP at the Centre as a party bent on tearing away citizenship from Bengalis, Muslims, Matuas and refugees.
That movement helped her reset the 2021 election narrative and counter the BJP’s aggressive Hindutva push, to which she lost 18 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. Now, with the EC’s SIR exercise in Bihar, the opportunity to revive that sentiment is back.
The BJP has often accused Bengal’s voter rolls of being “contaminated”, which is seen as code for infiltration from across the Bangladesh border. The SIR could become the vehicle through which those claims are officially acted upon.
Already, there are murmurs in border districts and people are anxious about losing voting rights, fearing documentation errors or targeted disenfranchisement. Banerjee, known for sensing mood shifts before anyone else, is unlikely to let this pass.
What may even add fuel to this moment is the Supreme Court’s recent involvement in electoral roll scrutiny. With judicial backing, the EC is now emboldened but so is Banerjee’s potential pushback.
She will frame it as an “assault on Bengal’s voters” and “Bengali identity”, furthering her narrative of an “overreaching Modi government, a compromised Commission, and a hostile judiciary” ganging up on a federal state.
CAN SHE REIGNITE ANOTHER CAA-NRC MOVEMENT?
The difference between 2019 and 2025, however, is that Banerjee is no longer the political underdog. She is the establishment, which is battling corruption allegations, facing anti-incumbency in pockets, and staring at an aggressive BJP seemingly determined to break her fortress.
Yet, if any leader can turn bureaucratic and administrative anxiety into street resistance, it is Mamata Banerjee. Her July 21 speech has never just mourned the past, and this year will be nothing different. It will chart the political roadmap to 2026.
If the SIR controversy gains ground, expect another storm in Bengal that may look and sound a lot like the CAA-NRC movement, but this time, the voter list itself is at stake.
