West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | Lakhs left out ahead of final phase polling; tribunals restore only 1,607 voters

Kolkata: The stage is set for the final phase of voting for the West Bengal assembly elections, although a large number of people will have to stay away from the festival of democracy, as the appellate tribunals so far re-enfranchised less than 1,500 of the deleted voters in the constituencies going to the polls on Wednesday.

The 19 tribunals were set up in accordance with an order of the Supreme Court to decide on the appeals filed by lakhs of deleted voters, and they restored the suffrage of only 1,607 across the state, including 139 in the 152 constituencies, which went to the polls in the first phase on Thursday, and 1,468 in the 142 constituencies where voting would take place in the final phase on Wednesday.

The tribunals also ordered the deletion of six voters in the second phase constituencies, just as they had done for eight in the first phase constituencies.

As ordered by the Supreme Court, the Election Commission issued supplementary lists of voters early on Tuesday, adding the voters re-enfranchised by the appellate tribunals. The supplementary list also reflected the deletion of voters as ordered by the tribunals.

Over 3.21 crore voters – 1.64 crore men, 1.57 crore women, and 792 transgenders – will be eligible to vote in 41,001 polling stations to decide the fate of 1,448 candidates contesting in the constituencies spread over seven districts of West Bengal, the EC officials said. The first phase of polling saw a record 93.19% voting, and the EC officials said that they were expecting a similar high turnout in the second phase, too.

The EC deployed a total of 2,321 companies of central paramilitary forces, in addition to local police personnel, to ensure free and fair polls in the 142 constituencies.

The paramilitary forces have deployed armoured vehicles in the districts where voting will take place on Wednesday.

A total of 2,473 people were apprehended across the state in the past two and a half days ahead of the second phase of the state assembly elections, the EC officials said, adding that a total of 390 arms and 598 rounds of ammunition had been recovered over the past four weeks.

The poll panel deployed 273 companies of the central paramilitary forces in Kolkata, where the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s de facto chief ministerial candidate, Suvendu Adhikari, would take on the ruling Trinamool Congress supremo and the state’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, in Bhabanipur.

Of the 142 constituencies going to the polls on Wednesday, the TMC, in 2021, had won in 123, with the BJP securing only 18 seats and others only one. However, of the 152 constituencies, which had gone to the polls in the first phase, the TMC had won 92 in 2021, and the BJP had secured 59, while an independent candidate had been elected from one.

The TMC had won 213 of the 294 seats in the 2021 assembly polls, securing 3.28 crore or 47.9% votes. The BJP had secured 2.63 crore or 38.1% of the votes polled, winning 77 seats in the state assembly.

Around 63.66 lakh voters, nearly 8.3% of the electorate, had been deleted from the rolls across West Bengal since the beginning of the roll revision exercise in November 2025, till February 28. However, over 60.06 lakh more voters had been placed in the “under adjudication” category, and their eligibility to remain on the electoral rolls was subjected to scrutiny by judicial officers. The EC data showed that over 27.16 lakh voters of the 60.06 lakhs placed in the “under adjudication” category had been stripped of voting rights, while more than 32.68 lakh of them had been included in the electoral rolls.

Earlier, once the electoral rolls were frozen on April 6 and 9 for the 294 assembly seats going to the polls on April 23 and 29, no deleted voters had any chance to make it back on the rolls in time to participate in the elections.

But the Supreme Court ordered on April 14 that voters cleared by the tribunals, even up to two days before polling, would still be allowed to vote.

The order of the apex court raised hope among the deleted voters.

But, for an overwhelming majority of them, hope has remained unfulfilled, with only 1,607 restored to the rolls in time to cast votes.

The SIR of the electoral rolls in West Bengal triggered a high-pitched war of words between the ruling TMC and its principal rival, BJP, overshadowing other issues that generally dominate political discourse ahead of the polls – like corruption, lack of employment opportunities, recruitment scams, closure of schools and irregularities in the healthcare sectors.