SIR shadow in Bengal: BJP seat share increases after deletion of names in roll revision

KOLKATA: BJP has gained in seats that have seen sizeable SIR deletions, irrespective of whether the quantum was higher than 25,000 people or lower.
There were 169 assembly constituencies that went to the polls after the deletion of more than 25,000 names.



In the 2021 assembly elections, Trinamool had bagged 128 of the 169 seats and BJP, 41. EC’s “Trends and Results” data on Monday evening showed BJP was set to win at least 100 of those constituencies this time. The numbers may change as the EC did not announce all the results till late on Monday.

In the remaining 124 seats, which saw the deletion of less than 25,000 names, BJP’s tally rose from 36 in 2021 to 108, a three-fold rise.
Among the 38 assembly seats in which the “logical discrepancy” deletions were highest, Trinamool had won 34 in 2021. This time, it won 22.
The SIR resulted in the deletion of close to 91 lakh names in Bengal.

Among the six assembly seats that witnessed the most SIR deletions, TMC won four — Chowringhee, Shamsherganj, Metiaburuz and Kolkata Port. The other two — Jorasanko and Howrah North — went to BJP. In the last assembly polls, all six had been bagged by TMC.

Apart from Jorasanko, BJP won three other seats in Kolkata North electoral district — Maniktala, Shyampukur and Cossipore-Belgachhia. It also won Rashbehari, Behala East, Bidhannagar, Baranagar, Dum Dum, Dum Dum North and Rajarhat-Gopalpur, and was leading in Behala West, Tollygunge and Jadavpur.

All these seats saw over 25,000 deletions during the SIR and had gone to Trinamool five years ago.

Farakka was one of the seats with 25,000-plus deletions which BJP failed to win this time. The constituency elected Congress’s Motab Shaikh, whose name was deleted during the SIR. He moved an appellate tribunal — one of the 19 set up on Supreme Court’s order — and got his voting right restored. Shaikh won Farakka by 63,050 votes.

Political analyst and former Rabindra Bharati University vice-chancellor Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury said, “Around 35 lakh voters appealed to appellate tribunals to get back their right to vote. The seats that saw high SIR deletions partly helped BJP score big. Also, we can presume from the trend that a section of the disenfranchised voters formed TMC’s vote bank... Others factors that worked (in BJP’s favour) in urban and semi-urban areas were women’s safety, and lack of jobs and industrialisation.”

He added, “Political change has always come to Bengal in the form of a landslide.”

Subhajit Naskar, who teaches international relations at Jadavpur University, said, “SIR deletions have played a major role in ensuring BJP’s victory. Many of the seats where TMC had won by a formidable margin in previous elections have recorded high deletions. Besides, anger against TMC and other factors such as the job scam helped BJP.”

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