TMC claims SIR deletions impacted Bengal poll results, Supreme Court responds

The Supreme Court said Mamata Banerjee and others could file fresh applications over electoral roll deletions in West Bengal. The hearing centred on whether Special Intensive Revision disputes may have affected election results.

In Short

• Kalyan Banerjee said 31 seats had deletion counts above victory margins
• He cited one seat where 5,000 deletions outweighed an 862-vote defeat
• TMC claimed 35 lakh deletion appeals against a 32 lakh vote gap

The Supreme Court on Monday said former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and others were free to file fresh applications over claims that deletions during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls may have affected poll outcomes in several Assembly constituencies in the state.

A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a batch of petitions related to the SIR exercise when senior advocate and Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee argued that the revision process had significantly impacted election results in West Bengal.

Appearing for the Trinamool Congress, Kalyan Banerjee told the top court that in 31 Assembly seats, the margin of victory was lower than the number of voter names deleted during the SIR adjudication process. He cited one constituency where, according to him, his party candidate lost by just 862 votes while more than 5,000 names were removed from the electoral rolls.

The Trinamool MP further submitted that the overall vote difference between the TMC and the BJP in the state was around 32 lakh votes, while appeals against deletions exceeded 35 lakh. He argued that there was growing concern that adjudication of such appeals could take years.

Responding to the submissions, the bench observed that if the victory margin in constituencies was indeed lower than the number of deleted votes, fresh applications could be moved before the court. During an earlier hearing too, the apex court had indicated it would examine cases where the difference between winning and losing margins was smaller than the disputed deletions.

Appearing for Trinamool Congress, senior advocate and Rajya Sabha MP Menaka Guruswamy told the bench that, at the current pace, appellate tribunals could take nearly four years to clear pending appeals linked to additions and deletions in electoral rolls.

The Election Commission of India opposed the submissions, maintaining that the legal remedy in such cases was through election petitions. Counsel for the poll panel told the court that "law is clear" on election-related disputes and argued that every issue arising out of the SIR process could not be separately litigated.

The bench, however, noted that the mechanism for adjudication of appeals could still be improved and said timely disposal of such cases remained important.

The Supreme Court was hearing multiple petitions, including one filed by Mamata Banerjee, challenging aspects of the SIR exercise conducted in West Bengal just before the recently concluded Assembly elections.

In the 294-member West Bengal Assembly, the BJP won 207 seats, while the TMC secured 80. The elections recorded a voter turnout of over 90 per cent.

WHAT POLL DATA REVEALS?

Interestingly, constituencies won by the TMC in the 2021 Assembly elections witnessed a steeper average reduction in voters during the SIR exercise than BJP-held seats, by nearly 1.7 percentage points. Yet, many of the constituencies that saw the sharpest deletions also remained among the TMC's strongest-performing seats in the 2026 elections.

Election Commission data also showed that of the 21 constituencies where more than 20 per cent of voters were removed from the rolls, fewer than half eventually swung in favour of the BJP, far below the party's overall statewide strike rate of 63 per cent.

While the figures lend weight to the TMC's allegation that voter deletions were concentrated in its strongholds, the data remain inconclusive on whether the exercise had a decisive electoral impact.

- Ends