The special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengal could undo the math for both the ruling Trinamool and challenger BJP, with the number of voters deleted exceeding the victory margin in many constituencies won by both parties in the last Assembly election.
Let us first examine the probable – with an emphasis, because it is not known whose voters were deleted – effects on the ruling party.
The number of voters deleted in the SIR exceeds the victory margin in 41 of the 43 Assembly constituencies in Bengal that the ruling Trinamool won with a victory margin between 10,000 and 50,000 votes in the 2021 Bengal Assembly election.
Among these constituencies are seven of the 11 seats in Kolkata, including chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Bhabanipur.
Contesting from Bhabanipur in 2021, the Trinamool veteran Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay had won the seat by a margin of 28,719 votes. The draft rolls published in December last year had deleted 44,787 voters, most of them marked absent, shifted, dead or duplicate.
Another 3,893 voters in Bhabanipur were deleted after the completion of the SIR adjudication process.
Mamata had won from Bhabanipur in a by-election held after the Assembly polls, in September 2021, by a margin of 58,835 votes.
The picture is similar in 12 other seats stretching from the industrial belt in North 24-Parganas to the south-western part of Kolkata in both Behala East and West constituencies and deep-south till Sonarpur.
The Bengal BJP is banking on the exclusions made in the electoral list for its promised “badlav” (change) in Bengal after having emerged as the main Opposition in the state since 2021.
In the last Assembly election, the Trinamool had won 40 seats where the victory margin was less than 10,000. Except for the seats of Sabang and Patashpur, in all the other seats, the SIR deletions are way above the victory margins.
For example, the victory margin of the Trinamool nominee in Dantan was a mere 623 votes, while over 11, 000 voters have been deleted. In East Midnapore’s Tamluk, little under 9,000 voters have been deleted; the victory margin was 793.
Similarly, in the Jalpaiguri Assembly constituency in north Bengal, the Trinamool’s victory margin was a mere 941, while the deletions number around 16,000.
SIR trouble for BJP too?
The SIR deletions are far higher than the victory margin in 29 seats that the BJP had won in Bengal in 2021 with the margin being less than 10,000.
In the 2021 election, the BJP had won 77 of the 294 seats in the Bengal Assembly.
The party does not seem worried.
“The impact will be far more on the Trinamool,” said a Bengal BJP leader. “As the ruling party they could manipulate the voters list keeping the absent, shifted, dead and duplicate voters and use them. The weed has been cleared now.”
After the completion of the adjudication process of around 60.06 lakh names, 32,24,092 voters have retained their place in the electoral rolls, while 27,16,393 have been removed.
In the daily meetings that Mamata has addressed since the poll campaign rolled on, the SIR and deletions have formed a bulk of her speech.
On Saturday at Jhargram’s Jamda circus ground, Mamata said, “Are you not citizens of this country? Did you not spend your entire lives here? Don’t you have families here? They have deleted 90 lakh voters. What was the necessity to do it before the elections?
“If every person is an infiltrator then with whose support did Modi become prime minister? The same list from where you have deleted 90 lakh names. Why won’t you resign? Amit bhai [Union home minister Amit Shah] why won’t you resign? Why won’t your government resign? You know you cannot win Bengal, that is why you have launched this attack on the people,” she added.
A section of the Trinamool claimed the deletion of 60 lakh Hindus from the electoral rolls would hurt the BJP too.
“It is not that the BJP has a monopoly on the Hindu votes in Bengal,” said a Trinamool leader.
Trinamool sources said the party had been preparing for the SIR exercise and its aftermath to allay the fears of the voters.
“After the SIR process started over 5,000 camps were set up across the state to assist the voters,” said a Trinamool source. “We are confident the family members of those 90 lakh people deprived of their voting rights will rally behind the party.”
The SIR process has deleted a little under 91 lakh voters from the electoral rolls of Bengal.