Mamata Banerjee says her government ‘won’t set up detention camps’ in West Bengal

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said that her government will not set up any “detention camps” in the state, adding that she follows the Constitution and practises secular politics.

The Trinamool Congress chief also said that she did not want the public to face distress on account of the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls and urged the Union government not to issue “forceful instructions” to state government officers “like the British”, The Indian Express reported.

“If you want to give instructions, send them to the state government,” the newspaper quoted her as saying. “Otherwise, we have to save our officers.”

The revision of the voter rolls is underway in 12 states and Union Territories, including in West Bengal. Booth-level officers began distributing enumeration forms on November 4.

The exercise comes even as Assembly polls are expected to take place in West Bengal in the first half of 2026.

Banerjee has repeatedly claimed that the Union government’s real intention behind the revision is to create a National Register of Citizens – a proposed exercise to create a list of Indian citizens and to identify undocumented immigrants.

The register was updated in Assam in 2019, after a mammoth scrutiny of ancestral family documents to weed out “illegal immigrants”, and ended up excluding 19 lakh residents of the state. The...

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