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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Karnataka: Indigo disruption forces newlyweds to attend reception online
Hubballi (Karnataka) (PTI): The venue was all decked up and a delicious spread ready for the invitees. But Megha Ksheerasagar and Sangam Das could not be present for their own wedding reception, thanks to the national flight disruptions that has sent many passengers across the country into a tizzy.
The newlyweds' reception was fixed here on December 3, but the couple was forced to attend their grand event only via video conference due to the disruptions in top carrier Indigo's operations, mainly due to crew woes.
Not meaning to miss the important day, the couple appeared on a large screen at the venue through video conferencing from Bhubaneswar, greeted the guests and apologised for not being personally present.
Instead, the bride's parents graced the occasion at the scheduled reception venue--Gujarat Bhavan, here, on behalf of the couple that had tied the knot on November 23 in Odisha's Bhubaneswar.
According to the family, the couple, both software engineers, work in Bengaluru. The reception was arranged at the bride's native place in Hubballi on Wednesday.
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To be part of their special day, the couple had booked tickets on the Bhubaneswar-Bengaluru-Hubballi route for December 2. Some relatives had booked tickets on the Bhubaneswar-Mumbai-Hubballi route. However, due to operational disruptions, IndiGo flights were continuously delayed from 9 am on December 2 until early morning on December 3, and were eventually cancelled.
"My daughter's wedding happened on November 23 and we had organised a reception at our native place in Hubballi for people here. The flight kept getting delayed and at the last moment, at around 4 am, it got cancelled. Now what could we do after that. We had to come up with some solution. Then I decided to do the reception online. I immediately arranged for a screen and asked my daughter and son-in-law to join the reception online," the bride's father Anil Kumar Ksheerasagar told PTI Videos.
He urged the central government to take corrective measures so that public, being the tax payers, don't suffer.
"What the problem with IndiGo is, we don't know. My daughter and son-in-law were supposed to come via an IndiGo flight but that got cancelled. IndiGo alone can't be blamed. The government must understand that it is in case of emergencies that people prefer flights. Some measures need to be taken to resolve this issue. When the PM's flight gets cancelled, he is taken by helicopter. Why is the same not done for us, the common people. We also have emergencies, don't we. The government must think of this, and if they ignore public woes, they should remember that we are also VIPs because we pay tax."
Relatives had come for the reception from across the country--Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bagalkote, Davangere and Belagavi.
"I didn't know what to do as relatives and guests had come from so many places. I was stressed, but then I quickly decided to do it online," Ksheerasagar said.
As the couple could not travel to Hubballi, the bride's parents sat in place of the newly-weds at the reception venue and conducted the rituals, while the bride and groom, dressed up in Bhubaneswar, attended their grand reception online.
