West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Alleges Electoral Roll Manipulation Ahead of 2026 Assembly Elections

Kolkata: The drums for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections are beating, but this time the battle seems to be not in the field but in the'electoral roll '. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has come out strongly against the SIR. She alleges that the Election Commission is systematically cutting votes from TMC strongholds at the behest of the BJP. According to the latest figures, around 294 lakh names have been deleted from Bengal's electoral roll after this process of SIR. This figure is so large that it could cause a major upheaval in the state's electoral history. The real reason behind Mamata Banerjee's worry is the statistical'nightmare '. According to the final publication of the electoral roll, the number of voters in the state has come down from 76 million to 64 million, a drop of around 16 per cent. In addition, more than six million names have been kept under'education'( scrutiny), which means that even if these votes are counted, an average of 1.22 crore votes can be counted in each seat of West Bengal.