After Bengal Minister Says Name Not On SIR List, Questions Over Candidature

A minister of the West Bengal government led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress has alleged his name does not appear in the supplementary list of the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise.

Md Ghulam Rabbani, the Bengal minister-in-charge of renewable energy and MLA from Goalpokhar, now faces the question of whether he can contest the assembly election next month.

The Trinamool has given a ticket to him to contest from the same seat. With his name missing from the supplementary list, there is speculation on his candidature, whether the party will replace him with another leader to contest from the Goalpokhar.

"After the Election Commission released phase one of the supplementary list, I couldn't find my name. It was conspicuously missing," Rabbani said.

The Trinamool has been accusing the poll body of carrying out what it described as "silent invisible rigging" during the SIR exercise in Bengal, alleging that many prominent names including Rabbani face uncertainty.

The EC on Monday night issued the first supplementary voters' list after completing SIR adjudications in Bengal. At least 60 lakh names were marked as "under adjudication" in the final voters' list published on February 28.

Following that, 705 judicial officers were deployed to check whether these names would be kept or deleted from the electoral rolls. The supplementary list contains the names of those voters whose cases have been adjudicated by these judicial officers.

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal has said some 29 lakh names have been adjudicated so far till Monday evening.

Voting for the 294-member Bengal assembly is on April 23 and 29; counting is on May 4.

BJP's Bengal Campaign

BJP national president Nitin Nabin was scheduled to visit Bengal today. It would mark his first visit to the state since the election announcement, underscoring the central leadership's intensified focus on Bengal, which remains a key political battleground.

During his two-day stay, Nabin is scheduled to hold a series of meetings with senior state leaders, campaign coordinators, and core committee members in Kolkata. The discussions are expected to centre on strengthening booth-level organisation, improving coordination between central and state leadership, and sharpening communication strategies to effectively reach voters.

With inputs from Ranjit Kumar Yadav