Kolkata: Alleging the unauthorised deletion of names from West Bengal’s voter rolls as well as ‘opacity, arbitrariness and informality’ in the conduct of the special intensive revision (SIR) in the state, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has intensified her confrontation with the Election Commission (EC), marking a significant escalation in the rift between states and the poll body over the exercise.In a formal letter addressed to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Saturday (January 3), Banerjee expressed “grave concern regarding the serious irregularities, procedural violations and administrative lapses” allegedly occurring during the SIR. This follows her previous letters dated November 20 and December 2 highlighting an “unplanned, ill-prepared and ad hoc” exercise, she wrote on Saturday.Posting the letter on Facebook, Banerjee wrote:“The exercise is suffering from procedural opacity, administrative arbitrariness and a troubling informality that has no place in constitutional democracy. Reports of inconsistent guidelines, unreliable IT systems, unauthorised backend deletions and citizens, especially senior, infirm and migrant workers, being summoned without stated reasons or adequate facilitation, raise legitimate fears of disenfranchisement and discrimination.”The chief minister’s most serious charge involves the unauthorised deletion of names. She claimed the EC’s IT systems are being misused to purge voters without the mandatory approval of electoral registration officers, a direct violation of the Representation of the People Act.She specifically accused the EC of applying a double standard by accepting the family register as a valid identity document in Bihar while rejecting it in West Bengal. She further alleged that the commission is bypassing constitutional protocols by issuing daily, often contradictory, instructions via WhatsApp rather than formal statutory guidelines.“The issues enumerated above are only illustrative and by no means exhaustive. Taken together, they demonstrate that the SIR process, as presently being conducted, stands deeply compromised and strikes at the basic structural framework of our democracy and the spirit of the Constitution,” Banerjee alleged.The EC, meanwhile, has moved to tighten enforcement on what it says are deliberate wrongdoings in the process. It has directed district election officers in West Bengal to file formal police complaints against five employees posted in South 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur, alleging they intentionally introduced inaccuracies and tampered with voter data by misusing login credentials.Separately, the Commission on Saturday sought an action taken report from the state’s police chief Rajeev Kumar within 72 hours on alleged attacks and obstruction faced by Union government observers during field visits linked to the SIR in parts of North and South 24 Parganas, seeking details of arrests and security arrangements.On the data side, the Commission’s internal assessment has flagged about 95 lakh entries in the draft rolls with inconsistencies.In some 23 lakh cases a single father is linked to six or more children, in 51 lakh entries names do not match accompanying data and 32 lakh entries do not align with the 2002 voter list used as a base.Age-related anomalies have also been flagged, including 4.74 lakh cases where the age gap between parent and child is below 15 years, and 8.41 lakh cases where the gap exceeds 50 years.Commission sources said extreme instances have also surfaced. Cases where dozens, and in at least one instance 165 people, were allegedly mapped using a single person’s name, raised suspicion of organised manipulation rather than individual error, they said.West Bengal’s chief electoral officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal said the EC was working to complete the process while correcting errors that occurred during the exercise.“Regarding the number of fathers, some astonishing details have emerged in a few cases; the commission will verify the entire matter accurately. The commission has no reports of deaths related to SIR work,” Agarwal said.The commission’s figures indicate a large verification drive is underway. A total of 30.2 lakh people have been served notices and 20.05 lakh have received them, while hearings are continuing at scale. Officials have also flagged 24 lakh voter identities as “unclear”, treating them as “suspicious” pending verification.Opposition parties and residents have, however, alleged that the process is causing anxiety among ordinary voters, including due to repeated visits to offices and summons for hearings triggered by spelling errors, mismatches or incorrect tags.Public trust has reached a low point as elderly and marginalised citizens face significant harassment, often being summoned for physical hearings instead of receiving the mandated door-to-door verification.Agarwal acknowledged that part of the problem stemmed from the revision process itself. “Some errors, such as name spellings, occurred during the process. These are our mistakes. In such a massive task, slight errors have occurred, and we will correct them,” he said.Launched on November 4 as part of the ‘second phase’ of the nationwide exercise, the West Bengal SIR is currently in its claims and objections stage after the draft voter rolls were published on December 16. Some 7.6% of names on the previous rolls were excluded from the draft.The SIR has also triggered sharp political reactions, with parties questioning both its methodology and the ground impact. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has taken its strongest line on what it calls the human cost of the revision, accusing the EC of putting voters at risk through excessive scrutiny and errors.At a rally in the ruling party’s stronghold Baruipur in the South 24 Parganas on Friday, senior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee paraded three voters on stage who, he claimed, had been marked “dead” in official records despite being alive, challenging the credibility of the draft lists and demanding urgent corrections.On Saturday, he escalated his attack at a rally in Alipurduar in north Bengal, considered a BJP stronghold, targeting Chief Election Commissioner Kumar.“Do you know Gyanesh Kumar? He is a magician. He can make living beings disappear from voter lists and make the dead walk. He is now Vanish Kumar,” he said.The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) has questioned the EC’s approach and its impact on common people.“The Commission has not yet been able to provide the number of ‘infiltrators’, yet it is causing harassment to common people. The Commission’s role is creating a duel between the TMC and BJP, and politics is being mixed into its functioning,” said CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty.The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while backing a stricter roll-cleaning exercise, has also criticised how the process is unfolding. BJP spokesperson Debjit Sarkar said: “We want peaceful elections with a transparent voter list at the right time. However, the way the SIR is being conducted in this state is putting the Commission and the democratic process under pressure.”Meanwhile, claims-and-objections data suggest West Bengal is seeing far more applications for inclusion than deletion. As of January 3, EC records show 38,214 applications have been submitted to delete others’ names, while 1,90,463 applications have been filed to add names, nearly five times as many.The Commission has also received 3,31,075 applications for name additions through Form 6, which will be included in the final voter list after verification.With inputs from Aparna Bhattacharya.