By Shiv Sahay Singh

Copyright thehindu

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has questioned the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) requirement under the special intensive revision (SIR) that people provide their parents’ birth certificates. Speaking on Tuesday (September 16, 2025), she said that institutional delivery was low till a few years ago.

“They now say provide the parents’ certificate for SIR. How will they give if they were born at home? We used to call our school certificate the birth certificate,” the Chief Minister said while inaugurating a new building at the Woodburn Block at the SSKM Hospital.

“Where was institutional delivery a few years ago? It was not even 4%. Only those who stayed in Kolkata perhaps received those facilities,” Ms. Banerjee said. She claimed that institutional delivery was only 60% in 2011 when her government came to power, and now it had increased to 99.5 %.

ECI notification

According to an ECI notification on 24th June 2025, a birth certificate is one of the documents accepted for SIR.

With an SIR imminent in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress leadership has taken a very strong stand against the process. Party leaders have said that they will lay siege to the ECI’s office if a single voter is struck from the State’s voter list.

Meanwhile, the ECI is likely to begin training poll officers in West Bengal as part of preparations for the SIR. The State’s Chief Electoral Officer, Manoj Agarwal, along with other officials, will participate in the programme.

The BJP leadership has been demanding an SIR in the State, saying that the voter list in the State is fraught with irregularities, including dead voters and voters from Bangladesh. A few BJP leaders have said that they will not allow the conduct of elections till the SIR is completed. Elections to the West Bengal Assembly are scheduled in 2026.