Kolkata: ‘Mostari Banu vs. The Election Commission of India.’ This is the heading on the Supreme Court of India’s record of proceedings for one of the most consequential legal battles in recent history. It is a case that will likely be remembered for its political theatre, including the image of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee personally appearing before the bench on February 4 to argue against the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Banerjee’s sharp manoeuvres and her ability to position herself as the defender of those caught in the ECI’s crosshairs are already well-documented.Yet, lost in the shadow of the political giants is a much quieter, more extraordinary story. It is the story of a 44-year-old homemaker from a remote village at Bhagwangola in Murshidabad who initiated the first legal challenge in this battle.While the cameras were fixed on the state capital, Mostari Banu was quietly filing the first petition to challenge the ECI’s controversial directive requiring passport-sized photographs on voter enumeration forms. Filed in November 2025, her plea went largely unnoticed by the national press, yet it struck a nerve at the very top.“I am a Muslim woman. In our religion, many women prefer to cover their heads and foreheads. It is a matter of our parda and our modesty. When the authorities insist on baring what we have always kept private, it creates fear. I went to the court to ensure that no woman has to choose between her voting rights and her religious obligations,” Mostari tells The Wire.On November 10, 2025, barely hours before her petition was scheduled for its first hearing, the ECI performed a sudden U-turn. In a formal clarification, the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal, announced that attaching a photograph was not, in fact, mandatory, directly contradicting the Chief Election Commissioner’s earlier public urgings. In December 2025, despite being a registered voter since 2002, Mostari received a summons for a hearing, this time questioning a discrepancy between her age and her father’s recorded age. She was not alone. In Murshidabad district, as many as 1.5 million people received similar notices.“I am an ordinary housewife from a village, but I can see what is happening,” Mostari says of the sudden influx of legal hurdles. “People who have been voting for decades are being summoned without cause. This is being targeted at Murshidabad and Malda.”These areas are Muslim-majority.The logistics of these hearings created a secondary crisis for the region’s backbone, its migrant labourers.“Think of the migrant workers, men who board a train for work in another state, only to receive a notice the next day,” Mostari points out. “They rush back, resolve it, leave again, and a second notice arrives. It is a cycle of harassment. Lives are being disrupted over a misplaced surname, a spelling error, or the recorded age of a parent.”But for Mostari, the lead petitioner in this historic case, the fight is not just about paperwork. Her fight for justice is fuelled by a history of systemic disappointment. A post-graduate in History with a BEd, she successfully qualified for the School Service Commission (SSC) teacher recruitment exam in 2010. However, she was left off the final list, and her career aspirations were soon buried by the subsequent school recruitment scams and freezing of SSC examinations.Today, she lives in a modest kaccha (mud) house with her husband, Kamal Hossein. Kamal, a former panchayat samiti member, is a leader of the CPI(M)-affiliated migrant workers’ union. It is this life of quiet, grassroots struggle that has prepared Mostari for the national stage.Mostari Banu and her husband. Photo: By arrangement.On January 19, the Supreme Court of India delivered a landmark reprieve that dismantled some of the most rigid barriers of the SIR exercise. In a significant victory for the petitioners, the court mandated that Madhyamik (Class 10) admit cards must be accepted as valid proof of birth, a vital provision for the millions in rural Bengal who lack formal birth certificates.The bench also ruled that those affected could now submit documents via authorised representatives, including Booth Level Agents (BLAs), using a simple signed or thumb-marked letter. This allowed the most vulnerable to defend their right to vote from their own doorsteps.Tomorrow, February 9, Mostari is set to travel to Delhi to appear in the Supreme Court, in person. While her name appears on the docket alongside TMC heavyweights like Dola Sen and Derek O’Brien, Mostari remains the lead party. Her lawyer, Sabyasachi Chatterjee, says she wishes to argue her case personally, mirroring the chief minister’s appearance in court.Has the state’s most powerful woman reached out to its most determined homemaker?“No, she hasn’t,” Mostari says. “But her party approached my husband 10 years ago, asking him to switch over. He rejected the offer.”