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Kolkata: The final list for West Bengal’s electoral rolls, after the special intensive revision (SIR) indicates that 1.21 crore electors, nearly one in six voters in the state, are currently categorised as either “deleted” or “under adjudication”. 

The sheer scale of these revisions is unprecedented, and is reflected in a staggering reduction of the state’s total electorate. Before the SIR exercise began, the state’s total voter count stood at 7.66 crore (76,637,529). After the draft rolls were published on December 16, 2025, this figure plummeted to 7.08 crore (70,816,630). Following the final publication of the rolls on February 28, 2026, the current electorate has settled at 7.04 crore (70,459,284). 

Compiled across all 294 assembly constituencies (ACs), the data shows that the volume of affected electors exceeds the most recent winning margin – of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls – in 234 constituencies. These numbers suggest that electoral roll revisions could have a material significance in a large proportion of seats, fundamentally shaping the competitive landscape of the state.

The SIR final list reveals that 61.7 lakh voters are marked as “deleted.” This single category makes up a massive chunk of the electorate’s shifting baseline. In 140 assembly segments, the number of deleted voters alone exceeds the 2024 Lok Sabha winning margin in the corresponding areas. While the aggregated data does not indicate the reasons behind each deletion or assign specific causes, the scale of these removals is substantial when viewed against recent, highly-contested electoral margins and the net drop of over 61 lakh voters from the pre-SIR baseline.

In addition to the outright deletions, 60.06 lakh electors (6,006,675) are marked as “under adjudication.” These voters are currently pending administrative review, meaning their final status on the voter roll remains unresolved despite the publication of the final list. If a voter’s name is still under adjudication, only a judicial officer can resolve the matter. If that fails, and unless a new process is created, they effectively become a “D-Voter” (Doubtful Voter) and cannot fill out Form 6 to re-register, as per electoral precedence established in Assam. Under current rules, only entirely new voters, or those who were explicitly marked “deleted” in the December draft or in the final roll, can submit a new Form 6. While doing so, they will need to establish a connection with the previous rolls or the 2002 SIR. A D-Voter, however, has to wait for a tribunal decision and cannot vote until they are cleared. Being placed under adjudication and then rejection will imply that a voter has exhausted their first round of legal avenues.

In 111 constituencies, the number of voters trapped under adjudication exceeds the 2024 winning margin. In these specific seats, the resolution of these pending cases could mathematically influence ultimate electoral outcomes if future voting patterns align with past victory margins. The distribution of these deletions and adjudications varies significantly across different regions, exposing distinct demographic patterns. Data analysis indicates a strong positive correlation (+0.736) between the percentage of the Muslim population in a constituency and the proportion of voters placed under adjudication. 

In low-minority areas, comprising 160 constituencies where the minority population is below 20%, electoral rolls experienced the highest average rate of direct voter roll deletions. These areas saw an 8.46% deletion rate per constituency, totalling roughly 33.8 lakh deleted voters. However, they have very few voters stuck in adjudication, amounting to only about 4% of the electorate. In stark contrast, within the 41 high-minority areas where the minority population exceeds 50%, direct deletions are much lower, averaging a 5.61% deletion rate. Yet, the adjudication rate in these zones skyrockets, with an astonishing average of 21.41% of the electorate currently marked as “under adjudication”.

window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}); The political landscape of these 41 high-minority constituencies reveals highly contested battlegrounds that overwhelmingly reject the Bharatiya Janata Party. Looking at the 2024 Lok Sabha segment winners, the Trinamool Congress won 29 of these seats, the Congress-Left alliance won 11, and the BJP won just a single seat. The TMC commands an average vote share of approximately 44.88% here. What is particularly notable is that the Congress-Left alliance captures the lion’s share of the anti-TMC vote, which drives the BJP’s average vote share down to just 21.27%, a sharp drop from their statewide average of around 39%.  Consequently, the swing risk in these areas is immense. The average number of adjudicated voters in these 41 seats stands at a massive 55,503 per constituency. Given that winning margins in these minority strongholds are often tighter due to the three-way split between the TMC, Congress, and Left Front, the final resolution of these 55,000-plus pending voters per seat will directly dictate their political future.

window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}); While the most extreme adjudication bottlenecks occur in Congress-Left strongholds in the north, looking at the absolute volume across the entire state shows whose territories are dealing with the most pending reviews based on the overall impact by the winning party. TMC-won segments account for approximately 35.4 lakh voters under adjudication, BJP-won segments account for roughly 14.1 lakh voters, and Congress-Left-won segments deal with about 10.4 lakh voters. 

Conversely, industrial and urban constituencies across Paschim Bardhaman (the Asansol-Durgapur region), North 24 Parganas (Barrackpore), Hooghly, and Howrah exhibit a distinct pattern that contrasts sharply with the rest of West Bengal. Across these 30 constituencies covering industrial corridors, an average of 14.40% of the electorate has been deleted from the rolls, which is more than double the deletion rate of the rest of the state. In just these 30 assembly segments, over 10.5 lakh voters have been marked as “deleted”, but the adjudication rate here is relatively low at 5.74%. 

Despite the demographic perception of Hindi-speakers leaning heavily towards the BJP nationally, the TMC dominated these industrial corridors in terms of outright wins, although the margins tell a much closer story. Out of these 30 constituencies, the TMC won 25 Lok Sabha segments in 2024, while the BJP won 5. The TMC commands an average of 45.21% of the vote here, while the BJP captures roughly 39.58%. However, even though direct deletions are the primary phenomenon in this region, the adjudication numbers are still large enough to mathematically flip the results in over half of this belt. 

In 17 out of these 30 constituencies, the number of pending “under adjudication” voters is strictly greater than the final winning margin. The TMC is highly vulnerable here, as the party won 14 of these 17 swing seats with extremely narrow margins. Some of the most critical vulnerabilities include Asansol Uttar, where TMC won by just 4,367 votes but an enormous 28,767 voters remain under adjudication; Kulti, where the BJP won by 15,053 votes with 22,509 voters pending; Durgapur Purba, won by TMC by a razor-thin 1,693 votes against 8,485 adjudicated voters; Barrackpore, where TMC won by 3,460 votes with 10,581 pending; and Bally, where TMC won by 6,492 votes with 14,336 voters under adjudication.

People wait at the Thakurnagar camp for Matuas’ ‘citizenship’. Photo: Joydeep Sarkar.

A third distinct pattern emerges when conducting a Matua belt analysis. The Matua community (a prominent Scheduled Caste subgroup) is a massive electoral force in the North 24 Parganas and Nadia districts. Demographically, these 13 core Matua-dominated Assembly Constituencies (including Ranaghat Dakshin, Krishnaganj, Bagda, Gaighata, Kalyani, Habra, etc.), have a high average SC concentration of nearly 31%. In the draft roll, 11.01% of the electorate in these constituencies was classified as Unmapped. This translates to an average of 27,617 voters per constituency, leaving a staggering total of 3.59 lakh voters without clear polling station mapping. However, unlike the high-minority areas where adjudications are off the charts, the Matua belt faces a relatively standard rate of vulnerability to roll sanitisation regarding adjudications (averaging roughly 16,751 pending voters per constituency). 

Politically, this region represents one of the strongest localised belts for BJP consolidation in South Bengal. During the 2024 Lok Sabha segments, the BJP secured a dominant average vote share of 48.61%, winning 9 out of these 13 seats, effectively driving the TMC’s share in this belt down to 41.42%. Yet, despite this consolidation, the margins remain fiercely contested. In five out of these 13 constituencies, the number of voters marked as “under adjudication” alone surpasses the 2024 winning margin: Habra (28,264 adjudicated against a BJP margin of 19,933), Ashoknagar (18,284 adjudicated against an TMC margin of 13,094), Haringhata (17,506 adjudicated against a BJP margin of 10,769), Kalyani (12,236 adjudicated against a BJP margin of 10,422), and Jagatdal (11,259 adjudicated against an TMC margin of 5,984).

This again raises questions about the ECI’s conduct in dealing with “logical discrepancies”. When the Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of supplanting EC-appointed electoral officers with serving and retired judicial officers, including reinforcements from neighbouring Odisha and Jharkhand to hear these discrepancy cases, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the TMC hailed the intervention as “historic.” Yet, as the Supreme Court itself noted, this unprecedented judicial takeover was necessitated by a “trust deficit” between two mighty forces, the state government and the ECI. 

For the 60.01 lakh people whose democratic fate now rests on the shoulders of overwhelmed judicial officers, this bureaucratic limbo carries the terrifying spectre of mass disenfranchisement. Trapped in the adjudication pipeline, these individuals face the looming fear of being permanently branded as “doubtful voters” and of being stripped of their fundamental democratic voice while being forced to prove their legitimacy in endless tribunals. The lingering question is whether lakhs of voters, suddenly burdened with fighting for their enfranchisement, have simply become expendable pawns in a high-stakes battle for political supremacy.

© The Wire