Mamata to scale up anti-SIR campaign with rallies in Malda, Murshidabad, Cooch Behar
Kolkata (PTI): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will intensify her offensive against the EC's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls with rallies in Malda and Murshidabad this week, followed by a major mobilisation in Cooch Behar next week, TMC sources said.
This marks Banerjee's second phase of anti-SIR mobilisation after her Bongaon rally last week in the refugee-dominated Matua belt, where she alleged the revision drive was being misused to intimidate borderland families.
The TMC is positioning her district-wise campaign as a counter to the BJP's "infiltrator-cleansing" narrative.
The TMC leaders said the decision to hold consecutive rallies in Malda, Murshidabad on December 3, 4 and Cooch Behar on December 9, in three politically sensitive border districts with sizeable minority, migrant and displaced populations, signals a deliberate attempt to reclaim the narrative ahead of 2026, especially as the SIR exercise fuels unease over scrutiny of documents, identity and citizenship.
The Malda rally is scheduled at Gajole and Murshidabad's at Beharampore stadium.
The Cooch Behar rally, scheduled for December 9 at the historic Rash Mela Maidan, is being projected as Banerjee's biggest mobilisation in the north this winter.
District leaders expect a large turnout from Dinhata, Sitai, Sitalkuchi and Mekhliganj, where the SIR has triggered fear among poor rural households.
Announcing preparations, district TMC president Abhijit De Bhowmik said an emergency meeting with block presidents will be held on December 1, followed by a district-level preparatory session at Rabindra Bhavan on December 2, with ministers, MPs, MLAs, councillors and panchayat functionaries finalising mobilisation plans for the chief minister's visit.
Party insiders said Banerjee's rallies in Malda and Murshidabad this week will serve as narrative-setting platforms before the Cooch Behar show of strength.
Local units have already begun booth-level campaigns stressing that the SIR's "errors and excesses" are disproportionately affecting border residents, minorities and families with historically fluid cross-border linkages.
The BJP, however, has accused the TMC of shielding illegal migrants and opposing a legitimate clean-up of electoral rolls for political gain.
With both parties leveraging the SIR to consolidate narratives ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls, Banerjee's Cooch Behar rally is expected to escalate Bengal's charged political confrontation over identity.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
