West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | Only 139 back on electoral rolls: Lakhs to miss West Bengal first phase polls

The EC has also made the lists accessible through its online portal.

Kolkata: The first phase of polling for the West Bengal assembly elections will take place on Thursday, with a large number of people barred from participating in the festival of democracy, as the appellate tribunals so far restored voting rights of only 139 out of lakhs who had appealed after being disenfranchised during the controversial roll revision exercise.

As ordered by the Supreme Court, the Election Commission issued supplementary lists of voters early on Wednesday, after the 19 appellate tribunals set up for the purpose decided on 657 of the appeals filed by lakhs of people who had been stripped of their voting rights during the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls in West Bengal.

The tribunals ordered the restoration of the voting rights of 139 people – spread across the constituencies going to polls in the first phase – and the EC included them in the supplementary rolls.

The appellate tribunals also ordered the deletion of eight voters who had previously been included in the electoral rolls.

Of the 152 constituencies going to the polls in the first phase on Thursday, the ruling Trinamool Congress had won 92 in 2021, and the Bharatiya Janata Party had secured 59, while an independent candidate had been elected from one. However, an analysis of the performance of the parties in the assembly segments during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections shows that the TMC’s lead dropped to 77, while the BJP declined to 53. The Left Front and the Congress, which had drawn a blank in 2021, had leads in 12 segments.

The 139 re-enfranchised voters will now join the 3.60 crore eligible to decide the fate of 1,478 candidates contesting in the 152 assembly constituencies going to the polls in the first of the two phases of polling. The constituencies are spread across 16 of the 23 districts of the state, which has a 294-member legislative assembly. The voting in the remaining 142 constituencies will be held in the second phase on April 29.

The electorate for the constituencies going to the polls in the first phase includes 1.84 crore men, 1.75 crore women, according to the Election Commission.

The Election Commission deployed about 2,407 companies of the central paramilitary force, in addition to local police personnel, to ensure free and fair polls in the constituencies going to polls in the first phase. The paramilitary forces have deployed armoured vehicles in the districts where voting will take place on Thursday.

“Elections are a festival of democracy, not for killing anyone,” the state’s chief minister and the Trinamool Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee, said at an election rally in the North 24 Parganas district of the state. “Around two lakh central force personnel have been brought into Bengal for the elections. This is unprecedented. Are they trying to intimidate me by deploying so many forces?”, she wondered, adding, “I want to see who has more power -- the armoured vehicles or the people”.

“It is time to remove Mamata Didi, who came to power with the slogan of 'Maa, Maati, Manush' (mother, land, people) but has left West Bengal at the mercy of the goons,” Amit Shah said while campaigning for a candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kolkata. “The thugs will flee the state after the BJP comes to power.”

Around 63.66 lakh voters, nearly 8.3 per cent 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 Supreme Court’s order had raised hope among the deleted voters. But, for an overwhelming majority of them, the hope remained unfulfilled, with only 139 restored to the rolls so far. The EC will publish another supplementary roll a day before the second phase polling on April 29, incorporating the people whose voting rights would be restored by the tribunals by then.