Bengal SIR: Over 58 lakh voter names deleted in sweeping shake-up

In a development certain to sharpen the political storm around the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, the Election Commission of India on Friday released constituency-wise data that lays bare the sheer scale of deletions across the state.

The disclosure came a day after the deadline for filing enumeration forms closed, and the figures reveal dramatic disparities between constituencies — intensifying scrutiny of a process already criticised by the Opposition and questioned in Parliament.

According to the newly released data, Bhabanipur — chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s high-profile Kolkata bastion — saw 44,787 deletions, almost four times the number removed from opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari’s Nandigram, which reported 10,599 deletions. Both figures relate to voter rolls first published in January this year.

A senior poll panel official said Bhabanipur originally listed 1,61,509 voters, while Nandigram had 2,78,212. The deletions, the official said, have been categorised under standard heads such as death, relocation, and duplicate entries — though parties on both sides have alleged that the SIR exercise has become mired in political suspicion.

Yet Bhabanipur is not the constituency with the heaviest purge. That distinction goes to Kolkata Port, represented by senior minister and Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim, which has recorded 63,730 deletions — the highest in the state. Other Trinamool-held seats have also seen large reductions: Tollygunge, held by minister Aroop Biswas, reported 35,309 names removed.

However, large-scale deletions have also occurred in constituencies represented by key BJP legislators. “Asansol South, represented by Agnimitra Paul, has seen 39,202 deletions, while Shankar Ghosh’s Siliguri constituency has reported 31,181 deletions,” the official said.

The district-wise data presented by the ECI underscores the magnitude of the revisions. South 24 Parganas — a Trinamool stronghold and the home turf of MP and party national general-secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who secured a victory margin of more than seven lakh votes in the last Lok Sabha election — has recorded 8,16,047 deletions, the highest volume in the state.

Analysts say this suggests the SIR is reshaping rolls most dramatically in densely populated or migration-heavy districts, though critics argue that inconsistencies in house-to-house verification have fuelled public mistrust.

At the Assembly-segment level, the constituency with the highest number of names removed is Chowringhee in north Kolkata, represented by Trinamool MLA Nayana Bandyopadhyay, which has seen 74,553 deletions. At the lower end, Kotulpur in Bankura district has recorded just 5,678 deletions.

Taken together, the ECI figures show that more than 58 lakh names have been deleted across West Bengal in the first phase of the SIR process — a sweeping recalibration of the state’s electorate unmatched in recent electoral revisions.

The ECI is scheduled to release the draft electoral rolls on Tuesday, a step likely to trigger a new wave of objections, counter-claims and political contestation over who has been excluded, who remains, and why the scale of deletions has varied so sharply from one constituency to another.

With PTI inputs