The BJP has decided to send a four-member delegation to meet chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in his New Delhi office on March 11 to demand the removal of 17 lakh allegedly bogus voters from Bengal’s electoral roll.

The delegation will comprise the BJP’s Bengal co-minder Amit Malviya, state president Sukanta Majumdar, national leader Om Pathak and Rajya Sabha member Samik Bhattacharyya

“We will hand over to the chief election commissioner the database of 17 lakh duplicate voters whose names are on Bengal’s electoral roll. We want the 2026 Assembly elections to be conducted after deleting the names of all these bogus voters,” said Majumdar, who is also the Union minister of state.

The Balurghat MP said the BJP had divided the 17 lakh voters into three groups and would submit to the chief election commissioner the list with proof to establish how the allegedly bogus voters’ names remained on the electoral roll for years.

“These duplicate voters’ photographs, dates of birth, fathers’ names or addresses match those of original voters from different constituencies. We will hand over all these documents to the Election Commission,” Majumdar added.

He said the Trinamul Congress should press for voting through biometric identification and the BJP would support it as there would be no chance of manipulation.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had accused both the BJP and the EC of being hand-in gloves to add the names of fake voters from other states to Bengal’s electoral roll to manipulate the 2026 elections.

Following Mamata’s instructions, the TMC’s rank and file took up the issue on the ground, visiting doorsteps to scrutinise the electoral roll. This move has created fresh embarrassment for the BJP, whose leaders had accused the ruling party of benefiting from fake voters in past elections.

A BJP source said Mamata’s accusations against the EC gave the saffron camp a fresh opportunity to pressure the Election Commission into taking action on the party’s long-standing allegation of bogus voters, ahead of the 2026 elections.

“We believe even if half of these 17 lakh fake voters’ names are eliminated from the electoral roll, it would pose a challenge for the TMC in many Assembly segments where the party has been winning for at least two terms. So, the BJP will continue with its efforts to ensure that these names are deleted from the list,” said a BJP leader in Calcutta.

A BJP delegation had already approached the chief electoral officer’s office in Calcutta with the same database and similar demands on February 28.

After Mamata directed the TMC’s rank and file to scrutinise the electoral roll at all booths across Bengal, BJP leaders started claiming that the move aimed to remove the names of Hindu voters, particularly those who had come from Bangladesh, and non-Bengalis — considered part of the BJP’s vote bank.

TMC’s Purbasthali Uttar MLA Tapan Chatterjee alleged that during a voter list scrutiny, he had found the name of Bhriguram Das, a Bangladeshi national. Das’s wife, Sulekha, a resident of East Burdwan’s Purbasthali, admitted that her husband had once come to India, where his name was registered as a voter.

“Currently, my husband is in Bangladesh and works as a primary school teacher there,” she said.

“There are many bogus names on the voter list of my Assembly constituency. Bhriguram Das is a primary school teacher in Bangladesh, yet his name appears on our voter list. We will identify all such bogus voters and ensure their removal,” said
MLA Chatterjee.