SIR in West Bengal: As 7.5% voters face removal, is state headed for Bihar-like electoral disruption? Mamata Banerjee dares EC, asks to...

After Bihar, the Special Intensive Review (SIR) of the voters' list has upset the ruling party in West Bengal. It is not unexpected or baseless. The TMC fears that lakhs of its traditional voters may be disenfranchised, and this may prove costly in the forthcoming West Bengal Elections 2025. The main opposition, RJD, which won 75 seats in the 2020 Bihar Election, was reduced to 25 in the 2025 Bihar Election, a whopping loss of 50 seats. Long before the election, the party complained that the names of more than 45 lakh voters had been deleted and most of them belonged to the underprivileged sections, its core vote bank. Will it be repeated in the neighbouring state that will go to the polls in February next year?

West Bengal Elections 2025

According to the latest counting data of the enumeration forms, 58 lakh, 8 thousand, and 202 names are set to be removed from the West Bengal voters' list before the assembly polls. Reports quoting the Election Commission sources suggest that 24,18,699 people have died, and 12,01,462 could not be found. According to the ECI guidelines set for the SIR, if a Booth Level Officer (BLO) visits a voter's home three times and cannot find them, the voter is placed on the missing list. About 19,93,087 voters have changed their address. The ECI has found 137575 voters to be fraudulent and their names will also not appear in the draft list. Besides, it will also delete the names of 57,509 people in the other category. 

SIR In West Bengal

According to the ECI, the number of voters in the 2024 Lok Sabha election stood at 7,60,10,006. Thus, the names of about 7.5% of the voters may be deleted after the SIR in West Bengal. Election experts believe, a swing of about 2% of total votes may change the government. It means if the ruling party loses 2% of its votes to the main opposition party, it may lose the election. 

West Bengal voters list deletion

In the Lok Sabha election 2024 in Maharashtra, the vote share of the MVA of the opposition parties was 43.9%, and that of the Mahayuti was 43.5%. However, in the Maharashtra assembly election that was held after the SIR, the two alliances got 51.3% and 35.4% votes respectively. In the recently concluded Bihar assembly election, the ruling combine of the BJP and the JDU got 20.08% and 19.25%, in total 39.3% of votes.  The RJD polled 23% of the votes. There was a swing of 0.62% in favour of the BJP, 3.83% for the JDU, and a negative swing of 0.11% against the RJD. 

West Bengal political battle

In the Lok Sabha election 2024 held in West Bengal, the BJP got 39.08% of votes, while the ruling TMC polled 46.16% of votes. There was a swing of 2.46% in favour of the ruling party and 1.56% against the saffron party. The TMC won 29 and the BJP 12 seats out of 42 seats. The Mamata Banerjee-led party is upset that a swing in the votes caused by to deletion of lakhs of its supporters may throw it out of power. A belligerent chief minister dared the Election Commission to delete any name from the West Bengal voters' list. Addressing a public meeting, she said,"If even a single eligible voter's name is struck off, I will sit on a dharna. There will be no detention camps in West Bengal." Explaining the cause, she added, "They are so hungry for votes that they are conducting the SIR just two months before elections."