BJP won, democracy lost

Crooked manner of SIR has cast a long shadow on Bengal elections

Alok Tiwari

Despite the stunning rise of film star Vijay’s TVK party in Tamil Nadu and Congress’s return to power in Kerala, the just concluded round of state elections were mostly about West Bengal. This was the election with highest stakes and where BJP applied its full might to remove the three-term incumbent Mamata Banerjee. In the end it crushed Mamata’s TMC, winning over 200 of the 294 seats and confining TMC to two digits. The Left and the Congress remained on the sidelines. What made the Bengal polls different was the long and bitter fight not just over promises, policies, and performance but also on the process.

TMC challenged the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls launched by the Election Commission months before the elections at every step. Mamata herself appeared before the Supreme Court. Nothing new in this. There were many challenges to SIR from several states in its new avatar that seems designed to allow EC to exclude voters at will. Right from questioning eligibility of voters at whim to insistence on specific documents, the whole exercise is meant to bring in an unacceptable level of arbitrariness in the process. Allowing arbitrariness and discretion in a process so important as voting rights of citizens strikes at the roots of democratic process.

Opposition parties took time in understanding the scale and impact of the exercise. By the time it was Bengal’s turn, things were becoming apparent. This combined with the brazenly partisan behaviour of EC under Gyanesh Kumar helped crystallize the idea. There was bewilderment at unexpected results that all seems to go in favour of the ruling party at the centre, right from Maharashtra to Delhi to Madhya Pradesh. Yet, there was nothing that could conclusively challenge the legitimacy of the process. That changed in Bengal.

The figures are now well known. The SIR resulted in deletion of over 90 lakh voters. In as many as 147 constituencies the deletions were more than 25,000, in some cases going as high as 70,000 or more. Those are astounding figures by themselves. But it can happen over two decades as people die or move out to different places. Some 60 lakh deletions were in this category. The other 30 lakh were through what the EC termed logical discrepancy.

This included flimsiest of grounds like minor difference in spelling of name, too large or too small age difference between parent and child ages. Nobody knows what else. Because EC itself admitted this was done via software that was not tested. It was not shared with parties or candidates, its source code remains secret, nobody knows who the people were who developed it. Some 27 lakh of over 30 lakh such voters challenged their deletion. That itself gives lie to EC and BJP claim that deletions were of non-citizens. A real foreigner will hardly have the courage to challenge decision of a statutory authority. It means all of them have evidence, right or wrong, of proving their citizenship. What is utterly troubling is that biggest chunk of such voters belongs to Muslim community, a demographic that BJP has consciously worked to alienate.

Not just EC but even Supreme Court denied them the right to vote, referring them to 19 tribunals set up for the purpose. Where it gets interesting is that the tribunals ruled in favour of the citizens in almost every case that they decided. Only 1600 got their vote restored in this manner but it was 98.5% of all cases decided, indicating most of EC’s deletions are wrongful. An SC with slightest commitment to democracy would have stepped in and allowed all 27 lakh to vote, but it did not.

The other thing to look at is the number of constituencies where the winning margin of candidates is less than the number of deletions. These are the ones where wrongful deletions have potentially impacted the outcome. There are 48 such constituencies, 26 of them won by BJP, 21 by the TMC. Of course, it cannot be assumed that the outcome would be different if deleted voters had been allowed to vote just as it cannot be assumed the outcome would remain the same. This is one logical discrepancy that neither EC nor BJP is talking about.

Yet, it is enough to put the entire elections under cloud. The election would be illegitimate if a single voter had been intentionally and systemically denied his or her constitutional right to vote. It would be illegitimate if result of a single constituency had the potential to change over such disenfranchisement. Here it has happened in case of millions of voters and in dozens of constituencies. It is all documented. If this does not make elections illegitimate, what will?

This has nothing to do with performance of Mamata. Her governance was far from ideal. Citizens of Bengal deserve much better. Maybe it was time for her to go. A churn is anyway good for democracy. Maybe BJP would have won the elections on anti-incumbency alone, even without the machinations of SIR. It has the resources, organization, and narrative to do so. But as things stand, it is hard to conclude that it won Bengal fair and square.

Given the apparently partisan role of EC, the quiet acquiescence of SC, and wanton contempt of BJP for propriety or any kind of institutional neutrality, it is the question for larger opposition whether they can continue to compete for power in a conventional way. While they may occasionally be thrown some crumbs so system looks legitimate, it is hard to see a big change in dispensation. The Gandhian way of withdrawing from the process altogether and agitating for a truly neutral EC and a transparent electoral system is open for them. SC may also redeem itself a bit by mandating greater transparency and neutrality in EC and electoral process.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on May 7, 2026