Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari picks retired IAS officer who oversaw SIR in state as his advisor

Kolkata: After taking over as the chief minister of the new Bharatiya Janata Party government in West Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari appointed retired bureaucrat Subrata Gupta, who oversaw the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state, as his advisor.

The SIR of the electoral rolls in West Bengal led to the deletion of about 91 lakh people from the lists of voters ahead of the just-concluded assembly elections.

The Trinamool Congress, which has now been voted out of power, had alleged that the Election Commission had embarked on the roll revision exercise in the poll-bound state only to ensure an electoral advantage for the BJP.

Gupta had been appointed by the EC as the Special Roll Observer on November 30, 2025, to oversee the exercise of revision of the list of voters in West Bengal. He remained a special observer of the EC during the two-phase polling in the state.

The BJP, however, claimed that the roll revision was a necessary exercise to remove the dead and duplicate voters, as well as the illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar, from the electoral rolls of West Bengal.

Suvendu Adhikari, himself, had repeatedly stated during the roll revision exercise that it would make it difficult for the TMC to win because the illegal migrants, whom Mamata Banerjee’s party had turned into its vote bank, would be removed.

The TMC, however, said that the exercise had ended up disenfranchising lakhs of genuine voters.

The notification for the appointment of the retired Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1990 batch as the advisor to the chief minister was issued just a few hours after Adhikari took over the helm of the state government.

The new BJP government also appointed Shantanu Bala, an IAS officer of the 2017 batch, as the chief minister's private secretary.

Bala was the additional district magistrate of South 24 Parganas before being given the latest assignment.

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.

Only 1607 of the lakhs of deleted voters were restored to the electoral rolls by the appellate tribunals before the two phases of polling on April 23 and 29.