Bengal SIR: On day of SC hearing, data fails to indict TMC govt

The Supreme Court is set to hear a petition on Monday, 13 April challenging the Election Commission’s decision to freeze West Bengal’s electoral rolls on 9 April, a move that could prevent lakhs of voters from exercising their franchise in the Assembly elections scheduled for 23 and 29 April. Petitioners argue that around 27 lakh documented voters have been left without a functional appellate mechanism to restore their names, raising concerns about large-scale disenfranchisement.

The plea argues that the court, having earlier invoked Article 142 of the Constitution to ensure completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, can again rely on the same provision to enable these voters to participate in the polls.

The apex court could direct the Election Commission of India (ECI) to conduct the election on the basis of the revised January 2025 electoral roll, which remains valid in the absence of a fresh list, or instruct the ECI to issue a supplementary roll incorporating the affected voters, as participants in a panel discussion in Kolkata said on Sunday.

Article 142 empowers the Supreme Court to pass any order necessary to ensure “complete justice”. The court had earlier used this jurisdiction to direct completion of the SIR exercise in West Bengal, even though such a revision is not explicitly provided for in either the Constitution or the Representation of the People Act.

However, with the ECI and the judiciary failing to complete the appellate process, lakhs of voters have been left without an opportunity to challenge exclusions, even as the rolls were frozen on 9 April, the last date for filing nominations.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, economist and election analyst Parakala Prabhakar, and academic-turned-activist Yogendra Yadav addressed the media at Kolkata Press Club on Sunday, focusing extensively on the SIR exercise in West Bengal.

According to Yadav, the revision exercise conducted in Bihar earlier was merely a trial, and “West Bengal was always the real target”. Responding to the Supreme Court’s observation on why opposition to SIR has been strongest in West Bengal, Yadav said the intensity of resistance reflected both the BJP’s determination to win the state and concerns about what he described as an error-prone exercise.

Yadav cited the ECI’s own statistics to challenge allegations that the West Bengal government or the state bureaucracy had manipulated the voters’ list, which had been cited as justification for the SIR. While the first phase of deletions did not appear to target any particular group, he argued that the removal of 27 lakh voters in the second phase disproportionately affected Muslim voters, both men and women.

Was there a problem with West Bengal’s electoral roll before SIR?

According to data cited by Yadav, the Union health ministry estimated West Bengal’s adult population at 7.67 crore in December 2025. The revised electoral roll recorded 7.66 crore voters — a near perfect match.

“In no other state was there such close correspondence between the ministry’s estimate and the electoral roll prepared by the state bureaucracy,” Yadav said, arguing that the list appeared consistent with demographic projections. However, he said the BJP and the ECI alleged that the rolls were inflated by the inclusion of deceased persons and alleged infiltrators.

Did Trinamool Congress add fake voters?

Allegations that the state's ruling Trinamool Congress had inflated the voter list were not borne out by the data, Yadav argued. Nearly 49 per cent of fresh voter registration applications in July–August 2025 were rejected by the state machinery — a figure he said reflected scrutiny rather than manipulation.

“If 90 per cent or 99 per cent of applications had been accepted, that might have indicated irregularities. A rejection rate of nearly half suggests due diligence,” he said.

Was the number of ‘mapped voters’ unusually low?

Another claim was that the proportion of ‘unmapped voters’ — those unable to establish legacy links with earlier voters — was unusually low in West Bengal. Yadav argued that comparative data did not support this claim.

The share of unmapped voters stood at 3.5 per cent in Chhattisgarh and 1.6 per cent each in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, all BJP-ruled states, compared to 4.5 per cent in West Bengal after the SIR exercise.

Was the state bureaucracy complicit in inflating the rolls?

The SIR process led to the deletion of 7.7 per cent of voters (58 lakh) from the draft roll in West Bengal — a figure comparable to 7.6 per cent in Rajasthan and 7.3 per cent in Madhya Pradesh. However, the number of final deletions in those states was significantly lower.

In Madhya Pradesh, only around one lakh voters were ultimately removed. In Gujarat, where 1.1 crore voters were flagged during SIR, about three lakh deletions were recorded. In contrast, West Bengal placed 60 lakh voters under adjudication after publication of the final roll, with 27 lakh names ultimately dropped.

According to Yadav, SIR exercises in other states eventually led to an increase in the number of registered voters between draft and final rolls. For instance, Uttar Pradesh’s draft list contained 12.56 crore voters, while the final roll recorded 13.50 lakh additional names. West Bengal, he noted, appears to be the only state where the number of voters declined after publication of the draft roll.