Officers deployed for SIR hearings have little knowledge of local language: Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

West Bengal chief minister on Monday slammed central officers who are deployed in the state for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) hearings for having little knowledge of the local language.

The Election Commission will start the hearing of electors who were dissatisfied with mapping information or unmapped voters — those whose details could not be linked with the 2002 SIR data but whose names appeared in the draft electoral rolls — after December 25.

The poll body will appoint roughly 4,000 micro-observers across West Bengal to oversee and scrutinise hearings in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision exercise, according to sources in the office of the State’s Chief Electoral Officer.

On Friday, the West Bengal chief minister defended the state against criticism, asserting that attempts to defame Bengal will fail and highlighting its growing economic and cultural significance. "Some people want to defame Bengal, but they don't know how much the state has changed. Bengal is today one of the leading logistics hubs and serves as the gateway to South East Asia, East India, and the North Eastern states. It is surrounded by border states like Jharkhand, Bihar, and Odisha," Banerjee said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday lashed out at the ruling Trinamool Congress in poll-bound West Bengal, calling the situation in the state ‘maha jungle raj’, and alleging that corruption, nepotism and appeasement politics were ruling the roost.

Addressing a massive gathering at Taherpur in Nadia district over the phone from Kolkata, Modi referred to the NDA’s landslide victory in the recent Bihar elections, stating that the “results in the neighbouring state would positively impact the BJP’s fortunes in West Bengal”. “The election results in Bihar have opened up the doors for BJP’s victory in West Bengal because, like I have said before, the Ganga flows into West Bengal through Bihar,” the PM said.

The TMC countered the PM’s allegations, claiming his speech showed “lack of concern” for the Matuas who had been facing uncertainties over deletion of names from the draft electoral rolls.