West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the Election Commission of India of working in tandem with the Bharatiya Janata Party to delete names of genuine voters from the electoral rolls ahead of the Assembly elections.
Her remarks came after the publication of the post–Special Intensive Revision (SIR) electoral rolls for West Bengal on February 28. Banerjee alleged that the deletions were carried out “deliberately by the BJP and the EC” to influence the outcome of the polls.
“The Election Commission has deliberately deleted genuine voters. I am shocked. This is a very sad and inhumane state of affairs,” she said.
According to the post-SIR data, 63.66 lakh names, around 8.3 per cent of the electorate, have been deleted, bringing the total number of voters in the state down to just over 7.04 crore.
Another 60.06 lakh voters have been placed in the “under adjudication” category and will be verified in the coming weeks. This is the largest revision of electoral rolls in the state since 2002. Banerjee said the deletions were visible even in her own constituency.
“Despite massive deletions in my Bhowanipore constituency, I will win even if there is one voter left,” she said at a public programme.
With the preliminary ‘final’ rolls now available, focus has shifted to two high-profile seats, Banerjee’s Bhowanipore and Suvendu Adhikari’s Nandigram.
Though the constituencies are over 100 km apart, they have remained politically linked since the 2021 Assembly elections. Banerjee had contested from Nandigram in 2021 and lost to Adhikari, her former aide-turned-rival.
She later returned to the Assembly after winning the Bhowanipore bypoll. Election Commission figures show that Bhowanipore has seen a net drop in voters. The draft roll published on December 16 listed 1,61,525 voters.
As of February 28, the number stands at 1,59,201. A total of 2,342 names were deleted, while 18 new names were added. Nandigram, on the other hand, has seen an increase. The constituency had 2,67,608 voters in the draft roll.
The latest figures show 2,68,378 voters, with 397 deletions and 1,167 additions, leading to a net gain of 770 voters. The difference is sharper under the ASDD category, absentee, shifted, dead and duplicate voters.
Bhabanipur saw around 44,000 deletions under this category in the draft roll, while Nandigram recorded 10,599. Around 14,000 names in Bhabanipur and about 9,000 in Nandigram are still under adjudication.
Adhikari said the deletions would hurt Banerjee’s prospects. “In the first round, 45,000 voters were deleted, and 14,514 voters are pending adjudication. So, there will be no voters left to make her (Mamata) win from Bhabanipur,” he said on Saturday.
Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh dismissed the BJP’s claims.
“The BJP has no reason to rejoice over these SIR reports. It is natural that after a long time, when an SIR is conducted, those who have died or shifted will be deleted. The constituency (Bhabanipur) for which the BJP is celebrating — check the total number of voters and the number of votes cast in earlier polls — that will make the picture clear,” he said.