<p class="bodytext">With the conclusion of the second phase of polling in West Bengal on Wednesday, attention has shifted to the outcome of the elections, to be announced on May 4. Irrespective of the results, the polls will be noted for the way the Election Commission of India (ECI) conducted them, raising questions about neutrality, procedural fairness, and voter participation. Article 324 of the Constitution vests in the Commission the power for superintendence, direction, and control of elections, which includes the power to prepare the electoral rolls. The ECI started its controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound states last year, with the stated aim of cleansing them, but the exercise, by design and the manner of its implementation, resulted in the exclusion of many genuine voters. West Bengal witnessed an intensified version of this revision, casting a shadow on the entire election process.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The SIR saw 7.66 crore names on the rolls in November last year shrink to 7.08 crore when the Commission published the first draft rolls in December, and to 6.44 crore in the final list in February. This amounted to the removal of over 15% of the electorate. The final list left out about 60 lakh people for adjudication of their status as eligible voters. The Commission introduced a category of dubious intent in the state for voters whose names and other details carried minor variations in spellings, etc. It also added complexity by deploying about 8,000 micro-observers in the state. About 27 lakh names were deleted from the ones listed for adjudication, with Muslim-dominated constituencies reporting the highest number of deletions. The Supreme Court set up appellate tribunals to decide on the claims of people who found themselves thus excluded, but the tribunals were set up late and had no timeline to finish their work. Twenty-seven lakh people approached 19 appellate tribunals to settle their claims days before the elections. The tribunals cleared only 139 names before the first round of voting and 1,468 names before the second. Their functioning has been marked by confusion and opacity; it is unknown how many appeals they rejected when they cleared over 1,500 names. In the absence of this data, the functioning of the tribunals remains contentious. It is estimated that at their present pace, the tribunals may take years to clear all the appeals before them. That means keeping the voting rights of lakhs of people in abeyance for years, making them ineligible to vote in the next parliamentary and local body elections, and perhaps in the next Assembly elections.</p>.West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | TMC, BJP spar over strongroom security.<p class="bodytext">More than 27 lakh people – about 4% of the electorate – could not vote in the elections, for no fault of theirs. The Commission’s constitutional mandate is to hold elections fairly and facilitate voting for the maximum number of voters. But in West Bengal, it used its powers to exclude lakhs of voters and disenfranchise them. The democratic course would have been to give the benefit of doubt to the voter and include her rather than adopt a policy of arbitrary exclusion that suited the positions of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is a major contender in the election. An election conducted without the participation of about 4% of the electorate is farcical. The excluded voters could be the difference between victory and defeat in many constituencies.</p>.<p class="bodytext">When the Commission launched the first SIR in Bihar, it sought to make the revision a test of citizenship, shifting the burden of proof to the voter and demanding documents that were difficult to procure within the prescribed timelines. The Supreme Court did well to moderate the Commission’s rigour by directing it to accept Aadhaar as proof of voter identity, to make public its reasons for deletion of names, and to ensure fairness in the process by other means. However, in West Bengal, the Court failed the voters by giving a long rope to the Commission, contributing to the delay in the process and, in effect, agreeing to the disenfranchisement of lakhs of voters. It is the Court’s duty to intervene when citizens’ rights are denied. It failed to do that. While it made some right observations and token decisions on the matter, it did not address the voter’s anxieties over a process that reduced her to an outsider.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The Commission also took control of the election process in ways not seen in other states. It shifted almost the entire officialdom, including the Chief Secretary and top police leadership, and placed its own chosen officers in their place. It deployed about 2.4 lakh central force personnel and many armoured vehicles. The ECI ignored many complaints regarding the violation of the model code of conduct against ruling party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Top constitutional authorities who should have protected people’s rights either actively denied those rights or were found wanting in their duties. The West Bengal polls presented a situation unprecedented in India’s electoral history, when the ECI itself undermined the spirit of a fair election, and the Supreme Court failed to restrain it. The Commission did not conduct the election with the voter at its centre, but positioned itself as the main player. This does not augur well for democracy, whatever the numbers would say on May 4.</p>
<p class="bodytext">With the conclusion of the second phase of polling in West Bengal on Wednesday, attention has shifted to the outcome of the elections, to be announced on May 4. Irrespective of the results, the polls will be noted for the way the Election Commission of India (ECI) conducted them, raising questions about neutrality, procedural fairness, and voter participation. Article 324 of the Constitution vests in the Commission the power for superintendence, direction, and control of elections, which includes the power to prepare the electoral rolls. The ECI started its controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in poll-bound states last year, with the stated aim of cleansing them, but the exercise, by design and the manner of its implementation, resulted in the exclusion of many genuine voters. West Bengal witnessed an intensified version of this revision, casting a shadow on the entire election process.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The SIR saw 7.66 crore names on the rolls in November last year shrink to 7.08 crore when the Commission published the first draft rolls in December, and to 6.44 crore in the final list in February. This amounted to the removal of over 15% of the electorate. The final list left out about 60 lakh people for adjudication of their status as eligible voters. The Commission introduced a category of dubious intent in the state for voters whose names and other details carried minor variations in spellings, etc. It also added complexity by deploying about 8,000 micro-observers in the state. About 27 lakh names were deleted from the ones listed for adjudication, with Muslim-dominated constituencies reporting the highest number of deletions. The Supreme Court set up appellate tribunals to decide on the claims of people who found themselves thus excluded, but the tribunals were set up late and had no timeline to finish their work. Twenty-seven lakh people approached 19 appellate tribunals to settle their claims days before the elections. The tribunals cleared only 139 names before the first round of voting and 1,468 names before the second. Their functioning has been marked by confusion and opacity; it is unknown how many appeals they rejected when they cleared over 1,500 names. In the absence of this data, the functioning of the tribunals remains contentious. It is estimated that at their present pace, the tribunals may take years to clear all the appeals before them. That means keeping the voting rights of lakhs of people in abeyance for years, making them ineligible to vote in the next parliamentary and local body elections, and perhaps in the next Assembly elections.</p>.West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | TMC, BJP spar over strongroom security.<p class="bodytext">More than 27 lakh people – about 4% of the electorate – could not vote in the elections, for no fault of theirs. The Commission’s constitutional mandate is to hold elections fairly and facilitate voting for the maximum number of voters. But in West Bengal, it used its powers to exclude lakhs of voters and disenfranchise them. The democratic course would have been to give the benefit of doubt to the voter and include her rather than adopt a policy of arbitrary exclusion that suited the positions of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is a major contender in the election. An election conducted without the participation of about 4% of the electorate is farcical. The excluded voters could be the difference between victory and defeat in many constituencies.</p>.<p class="bodytext">When the Commission launched the first SIR in Bihar, it sought to make the revision a test of citizenship, shifting the burden of proof to the voter and demanding documents that were difficult to procure within the prescribed timelines. The Supreme Court did well to moderate the Commission’s rigour by directing it to accept Aadhaar as proof of voter identity, to make public its reasons for deletion of names, and to ensure fairness in the process by other means. However, in West Bengal, the Court failed the voters by giving a long rope to the Commission, contributing to the delay in the process and, in effect, agreeing to the disenfranchisement of lakhs of voters. It is the Court’s duty to intervene when citizens’ rights are denied. It failed to do that. While it made some right observations and token decisions on the matter, it did not address the voter’s anxieties over a process that reduced her to an outsider.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The Commission also took control of the election process in ways not seen in other states. It shifted almost the entire officialdom, including the Chief Secretary and top police leadership, and placed its own chosen officers in their place. It deployed about 2.4 lakh central force personnel and many armoured vehicles. The ECI ignored many complaints regarding the violation of the model code of conduct against ruling party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Top constitutional authorities who should have protected people’s rights either actively denied those rights or were found wanting in their duties. The West Bengal polls presented a situation unprecedented in India’s electoral history, when the ECI itself undermined the spirit of a fair election, and the Supreme Court failed to restrain it. The Commission did not conduct the election with the voter at its centre, but positioned itself as the main player. This does not augur well for democracy, whatever the numbers would say on May 4.</p>
