Beyond the fish and puchka: Journalists say SIR is the ‘only issue’ in Bengal elections

In this roundtable hosted by Manisha Pande, the usual media narratives are set aside for the grounded perspectives of journalists who live and breathe West Bengal’s complex political landscape.

Joining the panel are Prabhakar Mani Tewari, a veteran journalist who has been covering elections in the state since 1991; Arka Deb, founder of the Bengali digital news magazine Inscript; and Tamal Saha, an independent journalist who runs the YouTube channel News The Truth. Together, they describe a state gripped not by traditional poll fervour, but by a “maze of bureaucracy” that has disenfranchised lakhs. 

“There is no other issue in this election except SIR,” remarks Tamal. 

Arka notes that if cultural icons like Rabindranath Tagore or Subhash Chandra Bose were alive today, they would likely be excluded from the voter list due to “logical discrepancies”.  

Tamal, meanwhile, offers a biting critique of the Election Commission and the Supreme Court. He lambasts the “farce” of the tribunal process, noting the irony that Aadhaar – rejected during initial scrutiny – is now mandatory for the appeals process. 

On the Delhi media, he quips that while reporters are busy “satiating on Bengali delicacies” like puchka and rasgulla, they are failing to report the magnitude of the 27 lakh people disenfranchised by the SIR exercise. He also criticises the media in Bengal and their dependency on government ads. “If tomorrow I had a little power in my hand, I would have moved a bill in Parliament stopping all government ads for all media houses,” he says.

The discussion also highlights the BJP's historical struggles in Bengal. Prabhakar remarks that the BJP's national leadership treats Bengal like a Hindi-heartland state, failing to bridge a significant linguistic and cultural disconnect. While Modi draws crowds, people don’t understand his speeches, which are often “misrepresented” through poor translation. He also notes that the party lacks a statewide face to counter Mamata Banerjee. 

Watch this discussion.

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