Jobs, corruption, SIR | Mahua Moitra on the Mamata mandate

With voting in West Bengal less than two weeks away, questions abound as to whether the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise will hurt the incumbent Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) chances. Concerns are mounting over the reported targeting of Muslim-dominated constituencies where the party has historically been strong. At the same time, the party’s 15-year governance record is under scrutiny, particularly its delivery on jobs, economic growth and social welfare.

To answer these questions, Sreenivasan Jain spoke to senior party leader and Member of Parliament for Krishnanagar, Mahua Moitra, in this in-depth interview.

Moitra labels the SIR of electoral rolls as the “largest mass disenfranchisement of India's voters that we have ever seen.”  She highlights the “Kafka-esque” creation of “Logical Discrepancies” (LD) – artificial parameters such as mismatches in name spelling or having more than six siblings – to flag 60 lakh voters for adjudication. 

“These are single-digit IQ people,” she says of the BJP, accusing them of using the administrative machinery at their disposal to target Muslim-majority districts like Murshidabad and Malda to fit a “Ghuspetiya narrative” that, she claims, the data doesn't support. When asked if she’s worried whether the SIR exercise will hurt their poll prospects, she says, “We are coming to power. The people of Bengal are with Mamata Banerjee. Take it from me. Save this video.”

Pressed on the accuracy of Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee’s claim that her government created 2 crore jobs over the past 15 years, Mahua Moitra defends the figure, attributing it to growth in the state’s MSME sector. Sreenivasan Jain counters by pointing to Banerjee’s own admission that 84 lakh youth have registered for the Yuba Sathi allowance (Rs 1,500 a month for those aged 21 to 40) suggesting a far more precarious employment landscape. Moitra attributes this to “double-counting” of informal sector workers who may also apply for the scheme, a defence that, in turn, raises questions about the quality of jobs under TMC rule.

While she acknowledges a shift in budget priorities, with education spending falling to 15 percent of the state budget, Mahua Moitra blames the Centre, alleging it has withheld Rs 2 lakh crore in MNREGA and other scheme dues. Sreenivasan Jain counters that the state is spending nearly as much as its entire education budget on the Lakshmi Bhandar direct benefit transfer scheme.

On corruption, Moitra contrasts the TMC’s removal of Partha Chatterjee, a former minister accused in the teacher recruitment scam, with the BJP’s protection of its own, citing alleged references to Hardeep Singh Puri in the Epstein Files. 

“We’re not that shameless,” she argues, criticising the “washing machine” effect where defectors are “whitewashed” of charges. Dismissing central raids as political “nonsense,” she remains defiant: “If you've got something, prove it.”

Watch this interview.

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