The Mamata Banerjee-led party alleged the “arbitrary deletions” of voters under SIR is a systematic humiliation engineered to disenfranchise and to silence Bengal’s voice.
| Photo Credit:
Jayanta Shaw
Banerjee vowed to present all those voters that have been declared dead by the Election Commission of India during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll in the State.
“I will expose the BJP-EC conspiracy to disenfranchise Bengali voters,” the Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo said at the start of the sit-in protest.
Notably, West Bengal’s final electoral roll after the SIR saw a net deletion of over 61.78 lakh voters and over 60.06 lakh names under adjudication.
The ruling Trinamool Congress in the State has termed the four-month-long SIR process conducted by the Election Commission as a “silent invisible rigging”.
The Mamata Banerjee-led party alleged the “arbitrary deletions” of voters under SIR is a systematic humiliation engineered to disenfranchise and to silence Bengal’s voice.
Net deletion
In the final electoral roll, net deletion of voters stood at over 61.78 lakh after removal of a total of around 63.67 lakh names and addition of around 1.88 lakh names. Additionally, the list notes that the names of 60.06 lakh voters are under adjudication as on date.
According to the Election Commission, the State has six crore forty-four lakh fifty-two thousand six hundred and nine (6,44,52,609) total electorate as on February 28, 2026, down from seven crore, sixty-six lakh, thirty-seven thousand, five hundred twenty-nine voters (7,66,37,529) as on October 27, 2025, before the SIR exercise.
The poll body said 60.06 lakh “doubtful and pending cases” have been marked under adjudication in the electoral roll. Names approved by judicial officers will be added by way of supplementary list later.
On Thursday, Banerjee attacked the BJP over mass deletion of voters belonging to the Matua community during the SIR of electoral roll in the State.
Remembering Matua matriarch Binapani Devi, popularly known as Baroma, on her death anniversary, Banerjee alleged that SIR is deliberately excluding Matua community voters from the voter list and their identity is being questioned.
“The conspiracy of the BJP Government at the Centre has pushed the Matua brothers and sisters into a volatile and confusing situation. Politics is being played in the name of giving citizenships. SIR is deliberately excluding them from the voter list. Those who are hereditary citizens of our country, by whose votes the Government is elected, are now being put in the face of uncertainty in the name of giving them a new citizenship,” Banerjee said in a post on social media platform X.
“We will not accept this injustice. Our struggle will continue against this ongoing attempt to take away the rights of the people of Bengal, including my Matua siblings…This is my pledge on this special day,” the Trinamool Congress supremo alleged.
Published on March 6, 2026