Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday set an ambitious electoral target for Birbhum, saying the party must win all 11 Assembly seats in the district in the 2026 elections, as he accused the BJP and the Centre of attempting to “unmap” Bengal’s voters through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
Addressing the ‘Rana Sankalpa Sabha’ at Rampurhat, Banerjee said the Trinamool Congress had won 10 of the district’s 11 Assembly seats in the last elections and must now sweep all of them. Referring to Anubrata Mondal’s claim that the party would win 230 seats statewide, Banerjee said, “I will add 20 more and say we need 250 seats.”
“We need 250 seats because if a party with just 70 seats can stop development funds and assault a poor chicken patty seller, imagine what it would do if it came to power,” Banerjee said. He also likened the SIR exercise to “votebandi”, recalling the queues during demonetisation in 2016.
Alleging a BJP–ECI nexus, Banerjee claimed the SIR process was being used to target Bengal’s voters. “Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has been served a hearing notice. Actor Dev and World Cup-winning pacer Md Shami have also received notices from the Election Commission of India. This is a conspiracy to unmap voters,” he alleged. Banerjee further claimed that the Centre had blocked Rs 2 lakh crore meant for Bengal and challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party to debate development records publicly. “If this money is released, Rs 680 crore more could be spent on each Assembly Constituency and Rs 2.5 crore more per booth,” he said.
After launching the ‘Abar Jitbe Bangla’ campaign from Baruipur in South 24-Parganas on January 2, Banerjee has been touring districts to ensure that no legitimate voter is left out of the electoral rolls due to what he described as the “hasty” implementation of the SIR. On Tuesday, the campaign reached Birbhum.
Banerjee also apologised to the gathering for reaching the venue nearly two hours late, alleging that “anti-Bengal forces” delayed clearance for his helicopter. “I am late because of a conspiracy by ‘Bangla Birodhis’. They were not permitting my helicopter to fly,” he said. Claiming his chopper was denied clearance, Banerjee said he arranged to use a helicopter belonging to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren. “Come what may, I had decided to reach the venue as a Trinamool soldier, even if only 10 people were present,” he said.
Banerjee’s chopper eventually took off from the Behala Flying Club airstrip around 2.20 pm after mandatory DGCA permission for his own aircraft did not come through. He had been scheduled to fly from Kolkata around 12.30 pm, party sources said.
Later in the afternoon, Banerjee visited the Tarapith temple and offered prayers.