Bengal’s disputed Assembly verdict entered a sharper legal phase on Monday as the Trinamool Congress told the Supreme Court that the removal of 90.8 lakh names during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls may have altered outcomes in 31 constituencies won by the Bharatiya Janata Party.The submission placed the Election Commission’s voter-list exercise at the centre of the state’s post-poll battle, days after the BJP secured 207 seats in the 294-member Assembly and ended Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year rule. The Trinamool Congress, reduced to 80 seats, argued that the scale and distribution of deletions required closer judicial scrutiny because the number of names struck off in several constituencies exceeded the winning margins.
A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi indicated that candidates or parties aggrieved by such results could pursue fresh petitions, particularly where victory margins were narrower than the number of voters removed or still awaiting a decision on appeal. The court was hearing petitions linked to the revision process, including challenges brought before polling and counting.
Trinamool Congress MP and senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee told the court that the party had won the 31 seats in 2021 but lost them this year to BJP candidates. He cited one constituency where the Trinamool candidate lost by 862 votes after more than 5,000 names had been deleted from the rolls. The party also pointed to a broader gap of about 32 lakh votes between the two main parties, while more than 35 lakh appeals linked to deletions remained unresolved.
The Election Commission rejected the charge that the revision had selectively damaged the Trinamool Congress. It maintained that electoral-roll corrections were meant to remove duplicate, dead and otherwise ineligible entries, and that disputes over additions or deletions could be addressed through statutory remedies and election petitions. The poll panel also argued that some constituencies with the highest deletions, including Sujapur, Raghunathganj, Samserganj, Ratua and Suti, were won by the Trinamool Congress, weakening the claim of a uniform anti-TMC pattern.
The dispute has intensified because the Special Intensive Revision was unusually large in scale. Nearly 91 lakh names, roughly 12 per cent of the electorate, were removed before polling. More than 60 lakh entries were marked as deceased, while close to 27 lakh cases were placed under scrutiny or remained pending at various stages. The revision reduced the electorate from more than 7.66 crore to around 7.04 crore, excluding cases still under adjudication.
The BJP defended the exercise throughout the campaign as a necessary clean-up of electoral rolls, linking it to allegations of illegal entries, duplicate voters and weaknesses in border-district verification. The Trinamool Congress countered that the process amounted to mass disenfranchisement, especially among poor, minority and marginalised voters who often struggle to produce documents within tight timelines.
The political stakes remain high. The BJP’s victory marked its first full capture of power in Bengal, with Suvendu Adhikari emerging as the central figure in the state’s change of government. The Trinamool Congress, once dominant across rural and minority-heavy belts, suffered steep reverses in several areas where the voter-roll revision became a campaign issue.
The controversy has also spilled into the new administration. Manoj Kumar Agarwal, who served as Bengal’s Chief Electoral Officer during the revision and election process, has been appointed Chief Secretary by the new state government. The Trinamool Congress has criticised the appointment, claiming it raises questions over institutional neutrality. The BJP-led government has dismissed the charge, describing the appointment as an administrative decision.