'I'm a trained lawyer': Mamata says will move court against 'inhumane' SIR exercise

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday extended birthday greetings to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

• Mamata Banerjee to move court over alleged inhumane treatment during SIR process
• She claims deaths and hospitalisations linked to fear and harassment from SIR
• Banerjee accuses Election Commission of flawed and arbitrary SIR implementation

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said her administration would move court on Tuesday against the "inhumane treatment" of people and deaths as the second phase of the SIR gathers pace.

"If allowed, I will also move the Supreme Court and plead as a common person against this inhumane exercise. I am also a trained lawyer," she said.

According to reports,  Banerjee earned her law degree from Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College in Kolkata. The college is affiliated with the University of Calcutta.

Addressing a public meeting in Sagar Island in South 24 Parganas district, she alleged that fear, harassment and administrative arbitrariness linked to the exercise had led to deaths and hospitalisations of several people.

"Terminally ill people have been forced to stand in queues during SIR to prove they're legitimate voters," alleged the Bengal CM.

According to here, since the SIR began, many people have died due to fear, and several others are in hospital.

"How would BJP leaders feel if someone made their old parents stand in line to prove their identity," she questioned.

On December 16, the Election Commission published the draft electoral rolls after the first phase of the SIR, with the electorate dropping from 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore following the deletion of over 58 lakh names.

The second phase, which began on December 27, involves hearings of 1.67 crore electors under scrutiny, including 1.36 crore flagged for logical discrepancies and 31 lakh whose records lack mapping.

Banerjee earlier had urged CEC Gyanesh Kumar to halt the "arbitrary and flawed" SIR in the state, warning that its continuation in the present form could trigger "mass disenfranchisement" and "strike at the foundations of democracy".

In a strongly worded letter dated January 3, Banerjee accused the commission of presiding over an "unplanned, ill-prepared and ad hoc" process marked by "serious irregularities, procedural violations, and administrative lapses". She intensified her attack on the EC, alleging that the poll body reduced the process to a “farce”.

Banerjee asserted that the situation on the ground, instead of any corrective course being adopted, had only deteriorated further, despite her two earlier communications to the CEC.

"I am once again constrained to write to you in order to place on record my grave concern," Banerjee wrote, recalling that she had flagged similar issues in letters dated November 20 and December 2.

The CM said the "undue haste" with which the SIR was being carried out, "without adequate groundwork or preparation", had rendered the process "fundamentally flawed".