TMC accuses EC of deleting lakhs of voters’ names in Bengal to aid BJP

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Saturday accused the Election Commission (EC) of deleting the names of lakhs of legitimate voters from the electoral rolls under the SIR exercise to help the BJP ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly polls.

A TMC delegation consisting of ministers Chandrima Bhattacharya, Sashi Panja, Aroop Biswas, Manas Bhuniya, Malay Ghatak met Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal at his office and submitted a memorandum listing their grievances.

"We are seeing different sets of rules and practices being applied in Bengal compared to other states. In the name of cross-checking ‘absent, shifted and duplicate’ voters, the EC has omitted around 58 lakh genuine voters by branding them as ‘unmapped’," Bhattacharya told reporters after the meeting.

She alleged that the action seems to be part of the bigger gameplan to delete two crore voters' names from the electoral rolls in order to punish the people of the state for rejecting the BJP repeatedly.

Biswas alleged that the mobile application introduced by the EC does not allow ‘unmapped’ voters to submit requisite details through annexures of forms 6 and 7, thereby depriving them of their voting rights.

"When we pointed it out, Agarwal said that he was forwarding the complaint to Delhi," Biswas said.

"Then how did the authorities arrive at such a huge number of omitted voters running into lakhs?" he asked.

He also alleged that the hearing date was altered arbitrarily.

"Initially a particular date was fixed, which was later postponed to December 27. Now only five days have been given to complete the hearing process. Why such undue haste?” he said, alleging that the EC and the CEO’s office were acting at the behest of the BJP.

Biswas said the TMC's letter to the EC and the details of unmapped voters, whose names were struck off electoral rolls, must be uploaded on the commission's website for the sake of transparency.

He said names of people's representatives including councillors and their relatives have been struck off the electoral rolls arbitrarily.

Bhuniya said, "I have witnessed 41 elections in the past, but had never seen the Constitution trampled in such a way."