Lagatar24 Desk
Kolkata: While BJP won a landslide victory in West Bengal’s 2026 assembly elections, securing 207 of 294 seats against TMC’s 80, a deeper analysis of the results raises significant questions about voter list deletions carried out before the polls.
Over 90 Lakh Voters Removed Before Elections
Ahead of the elections, the Election Commission conducted a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) campaign over several months, resulting in more than 90 lakh voters being removed from the voter list. Of these, 27 lakh were placed in an “Under-Adjudication” (UA) category after a secretive EC algorithm flagged so-called logical discrepancies in their data. These voters filed appeals before court-appointed tribunals seeking reinstatement. Over 99 percent of those appeals were still pending when the elections took place.
Supreme Court Had Flagged the Concern
The matter came before the Supreme Court on April 13, when a bench of Chief Justice Suryakant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi heard petitions from affected voters. Justice Bagchi raised a pointed concern about the relationship between removed voters and election outcomes, observing that if a winning margin is just 2 percent but 15 percent of registered voters could not vote, the issue demands serious examination. He also noted that the EC applied a new category of logical discrepancy in Bengal that was not used in other states during the SIR process.
49 Seats Where the Numbers Matter
An analysis of results across 293 declared seats shows that in 49 constituencies, the number of under-adjudication voters exceeded the winning margin. In Rajarhat New Town, BJP won by just 316 votes while 24,132 voters in that constituency were under adjudication. In Samserganj, TMC won by 7,587 votes but 74,775 voters were still awaiting decisions on their inclusion. Of these 49 seats, BJP won 26, TMC won 21, and Congress won 2.
Re-polling Scheduled for One Seat
Results for 293 of 294 seats have been declared. The remaining seat, Phalta, is scheduled for re-polling on May 21.
