Amid 'vote chori' row, poll body's Bengal data points to seats TMC won despite SIR deletions
The five seats with the most deletions are all in Malda and Murshidabad (both districts border Bangladesh). All of them were won by the TMC.
Five West Bengal constituencies saw the greatest number of voter roll deletions in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) ahead of the 2026 assembly election, and they all went to the Trinamool Congress (TMC), according to officials citing Election Commission of India (ECI) data. The state recorded a turnout of 93.71%, its highest since Independence, surpassing Tripura's 93.61% from 2013.
The BJP defeated the TMC in a historic win, leading to Opposition allegations that the SIR process influenced the outcome. The five most affected seats—Sujapur, Raghunathganj, Samserganj, Ratua, and Suti—are all in Malda and Murshidabad districts, bordering Bangladesh. The data does not definitively support the idea that SIR influenced a particular party's victory, as other seats saw varying impacts.
Murshidabad district, for example, saw the TMC's seat count drop from 20 in 2021 to nine. The ECI has rejected Opposition allegations of vote manipulation and maintained that the revision is necessary to ensure accurate voter rolls. The INDIA bloc and the CJP are protesting, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Despite the controversy, West Bengal's turnout of 93.71% in 2026 was higher than the turnout in many major democracies, including Singapore, Australia, and Belgium.
Written by urgent.news from Hindustan Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
