Rahul Gandhi during a public meeting in support of party candidates ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections at Chanchal in Malda on Tuesday
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Launching a blistering attack on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the RG Kar hospital rape-murder case, ponzi schemes and illegal mining in the State, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the ruling Trinamool Congress cannot do anything about the mass deletion of voters during the SIR exercise ahead of the Assembly elections.

During his first election campaign in the poll-bound State, Gandhi said: ”What happened to you in the name of SIR, the deletion of names in the voters list, is an act against the Constitution. Don’t be afraid. When the Congress government will come to power, we will make sure that the people, whose name got deleted, become voters again.”

“The Trinamool Congress cannot do anything about this mass deletion of voters. It is Congress which can fight against the massive voter deletion. The BJP wins elections through this kind of cheating,” he said during an election rally at Chanchal in Malda district.

The Muslim-dominated Malda district, which has 12 Assembly constituencies, saw around 2.39 lakh deletions during the judicial scrutiny. In a shocking incident on April 1, an angry mob held hostage seven judicial officers involved in the SIR adjudication process for several hours at Kaliachak-II BDO office in Mothabari, and later attacked them to protest the deletion of their names in the Special Intensive Revision exercise of electoral rolls before the Assembly elections this month.

ponzi schemes

In the election campaign, Gandhi accused both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee of corruption. He accused Banerjee and Trinamool Congress of benefitting from ponzi schemes by Saradha and Rose Valley groups. “Modi is corrupt. Is Mamata ji corrupt or not? Saradha chit fund had deceived 17 lakh investors, who are yet to receive ₹1,900 crore. Similarly, Rose Valley had cheated 31 lakh investors. And, these people have not received ₹6,600 crore. Moreover, there is illegal mining and coal scam in Bengal. Everything is being looted here. If anyone is benefiting from all these, they are the Trinamool Congress, its workers and leaders,” he said.

Saradha, a chit fund owned and managed by Sudipta Sen, had allegedly cheated thousands of investors across West Bengal, Odisha and Tripura, making false promises of inflated returns. Sen, who fled Kolkata, was arrested in Kashmir in 2013. After 13 years in jail, he got bail last week in the last two of the 380-odd cases related to the multi-crore ponzi scheme scam.

On the RG Kar Hospital rape and murder case, Gandhi criticised the Trinamool Congress government, alleging acute inaction and questioning its handling of the law and order situation. Speaking at the rally, he referred to the Epstein files to launch an attack on Modi. “America has a control over Narendra Modi. He sold India and West Bengal in the name of the Indo-US deal. He opened our agricultural sector to US farmers, and also compromised India’s energy security. The Prime Minister assured the US that without its permission we will not buy oil from anyone,” the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha added.

Published on April 14, 2026