Nearly 91L names deleted from Bengal electoral rolls

PTI

Kolkata

Nearly 91 lakh voters were deleted from the electoral rolls in West Bengal following the completion of the adjudication process of the SIR exercise in the state, Election Commission data revealed, opening up potential for a significant impact in the upcoming Assembly polls in the state.

While Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the poll body of undertaking “targeted deletions of Matua, Rajbanshi and minority community members” of the state, BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari maintained that “Bangladeshi Muslims have no place in West Bengal”.

EC is yet to officially announce the finally altered voter base for the state after the roll revision process.

Available figures, however, showed that the proportion of total deletion at this stage, based on the 7.66 crore elector base identified in October 2025, remains at over 11.85 per cent. The final deletion figure, since the beginning of the SIR process, stood at a little over 90.83 lakh.

Over 27.16 lakh of 60.06 lakh ‘under adjudication’ voters have been deleted during the now-concluded scrutiny by judicial officers, the EC data said.

In terms of ratio, the figure revealed that some 45.22 per cent of the cases under judicial scrutiny following the publication of the post-SIR electoral rolls on February 28 were deleted.

More than 32.68 lakh of those in the ‘under adjudication’ category have been retained and included in the final rolls.

The EC figures showed that maximum deletions were recorded in the Muslim-majority district of Murshidabad, where over 4.55 lakh of the 11.01 lakh names under judicial scrutiny were removed from the electoral rolls, taking the under-adjudication deletion figure in the district to around 41.33 per cent.

Significant deletions were also recorded in the Bangladesh-bordering North 24 Parganas district, where over 3.25 lakh of the 5.91 lakh under-scrutiny electors were found not eligible to vote, and in Malda, where over 2.39 lakh of the 8.28 lakh under judicial review voters were deleted.

The deletion figures following adjudication in South 24 Parganas district stood at nearly 2.23 lakh, in Purba Bardhaman district at 2.09 lakh and in Nadia at 2.98 lakh, the EC data said.

In terms of percentage, post-adjudication deletions in Nadia and North 24 Parganas, districts which are perceptively dominated by the Hindu refugee Matua community members, were at a whopping 77.86 per cent and 55.08 per cent respectively.

In Cooch Behar district, the primary home to Rajbanshi SC community in North Bengal, over 1.2 lakh names accounting for over 50 per cent of the 2.38 lakh electors under adjudication, were deleted from the final rolls.