91 lakh voters deleted in SIR: Hindus hit in numbers, Muslims in proportion — What’s happening in West Bengal?

On 9 April, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of deleting names of over 90 lakh people from the voter lists to grab power in the state and asserted that her party will win the upcoming elections.

Addressing a public rally at Minakhan in North 24 Parganas, the TMC chief said the ruling party would move a court to ensure that all those deleted from the electoral rolls are reinstated.

"You deleted names of over 90 lakh people to grab power in Bengal, but we will win," she said while attacking the BJP over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in the state.

91 lakh voters' names were deleted

Mamata Banerjee’s comments came after nearly 91 lakh voters' names were deleted from the electoral rolls following the completion of the SIR exercise in the state. The comments came on a day when the poll panel released the number of deletions in each constituency.

West Bengal is going to the polls in two phases – 23 and 29 April. The results will be declared on 4 May.

63% deleted are Hindus, says Abhishek

Overall, 91 lakh names have been deleted from West Bengal's voter list since the SIR began. The state's voters have shrunk almost 12%, from 7.66 crore electors in October 2025 to 6.75 crore now. West Bengal had 7.34 crore eligible voters in the 2021 assembly elections.

According to an internal analysis of booth-level EC numbers before and after the SIR by Trinamool Congress, of the 91 lakh deletions, 57.47 lakh (63.4%) are Hindus and 31.1 lakh (34.3%) are Muslims.

Based on 2011 Census data, West Bengal has a Hindu majority of approximately 70–72 per cent and a Muslim population of roughly 25–27 per cent.

So, have more Hindu voters been deleted than Muslims?

Muslim voters account for more than a third (34 per cent) of the 91 lakh names removed from West Bengal’s electoral rolls in the SIR process, as per TMC analysis. This is disproportionately higher that community's share (25-27 %) in state's overall population. As among Hindus, 63 per cent voters have been deleted which is lesser than community's share (70-72 %) in state's population.

However, in absolute numbers, more Hindus have been removed in SIR than Muslims. Mint has not been able to verify these numbers. The Election Commission doesn't release date based on religion.

Abhishek Banerjee's claim

At a press conference on 10 April, Abhishek Banerjee, the TMC national general secretary claimed that under the guise of "Detect, Delete, Deport," the BJP and Election Commission wrongfully removed over 90 lakh names from Bengal's voter list.

“In the first list released in February, 58 lakh names were deleted, then around 6 lakh more names were deleted. Later, from the adjudication list, around 27 lakh names were deleted. In total, around 90 lakh names were deleted, out of which 63% are Bengali Hindus,” Banerjee said accusing the BJP of specifically targeting them.

All political parties in West Bengal, except the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had opposed the SIR. The BJP insisted that the process was a drive to sanitise the electoral rolls and remove “illegal infiltrators” from Bangladesh.

60,06,675 names under adjudication

Of the 60,06,675 names under adjudication in West Bengal after they were left out of the electoral rolls, 27,16,393, or 45.22%, stand “deleted”, as per the first such data shared by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The ECI released its final Supplementary List on Monday night, a month after the adjudication process began.

The highest number of cases under adjudication was in the minority-dominated Murshidabad district (11 lakh), followed by Malda (8.28 lakh), South 24 Parganas (5.22 lakh) and North 24 Parganas (5 lakh). Jhargram and Kalimpong had the fewest pending cases, at 6,682 and 6,790, respectively.

High deletions in Matua-dominated seats

According to the ECI’s district-wise data, the largest percentage of voters has now been deleted in Matua-dominated Nadia (77.86%). The other high-deletion districts are Hooghly (70.33%), which has a high proportion of Muslims, followed by Purba Bardhaman (57.4%), North 24 Parganas (55.08%) and Paschim Bardhaman (53.72%).

In terms of assembly seats, those with high percentage of Matua and Muslim population have also seen significant deletions, such as Rajarhat-New Town near Kolkata (24,132 names or 7.4%), Ranaghat Uttar Purba (20,796 or 7.7%), Gaighata (19,638, or 7.4%), Ranaghat Dakshin (17,411, 5.95%), Habra (18,791 or 7.48%), Madhyamgram (14,842, or 5.18%).

Matuas are a sect of Hindu Namashudras, a Dalit community, who migrated from Bangladesh in large numbers and are being promised citizenship by the BJP under the Citizenship Amendment Act.

In the Bagda Assembly seat in North 24 Parganas district, for example, 50,230 voters were deleted. Of this 46,826 are Hindus, and 3,264 are Muslims. At the Bongaon Uttar Assembly seat in the same district, 42,164 voters have been deleted, including 37,101 Hindus and 4,310 Muslims.

In the Bhabanipur Assembly segment, where Mamata Banerjee is contesting, of the 50,987 deletions, 37,227 are Hindus, and 12,084 are Muslims.

In districts in the Jangalmahal region with a low Muslim population, Hindus account for almost 90% of the deletions. In Jhargram, for example, about 94% of the voters deleted from the electoral rolls are Hindus. They account for 91% of deletions in Bankura, and 88% of deletions in Purulia as well.

Top deletions in absolute numbers in Murshidabad

In absolute numbers, however, the top 10 assembly seats of West Bengal where voters were deleted from the electoral rolls after the adjudication process fall in the Muslim-dominated border districts of Murshidabad and Malda, the EC data said.

And all these 10 constituencies with the highest deletions are currently held by the Trinamool Congress (TMC).

What do analysts say?

Political activist Yogendra Yadav alleged on Wednesday that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is being used to "rewrite" voter lists, terming it a "targeted" exercise that may influence electoral outcomes in several constituencies.

Yadav claimed that the revision, rather than a routine updating exercise, placed an unprecedented burden on voters to re-establish their eligibility.

"This is not revision, it is rewriting," he said, adding that citizens were now required to freshly apply to remain on the electoral rolls or risk deletion.

Claiming that there was a particularly intensive exercise in West Bengal, Yadav said nearly 9.8 lakh names were deleted in the first phase, placing the state among the highest in the country outside Uttar Pradesh, where final figures were still being compiled.

According to Yadav, 36 Assembly seats had been won by margins below five per cent, and between 19 and 25 seats could be critically affected, with as many as 54 to 70 seats being vulnerable.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, who also addressed the press conference, alleged that the revision exercise departed from long-established legal safeguards governing electoral roll deletions.

Referring to the 1995 Supreme Court judgment in the Lal Babu Hussein case, he said any voter whose name appeared in an earlier electoral roll must be presumed to be a citizen unless serious doubts were raised through due notice and a hearing.

Bhushan questioned the timing of the exercise, claiming that the Election Commission's own past guidelines required at least six months for an intensive revision, whereas the present exercise was carried out within three months.

(With agency inputs)