5 months ago
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The ruling Trinamool Congress connected said that West Bengal's draught electoral rolls published connected Tuesday (December 16, 2025) nether the EC's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) person sharply undercut BJP person Suvendu Adhikari's assertion that the authorities hosts "one crore Rohingyas and Bangladeshis", with the fig of voters identified arsenic 'fake' oregon 'ghost' pegged astatine 1,83,328.
The draught rolls, released aft a period of enumeration, verification and scrutiny up of the 2026 assembly elections, elaborate deletions connected grounds ranging from decease and imperishable migration to duplication and non-submission of enumeration forms.
Supreme Court proceeding connected SIR LIVE - December 16, 2025
While implicit 58 lakh names person been removed, the EC's categorisation shows that the number of 'fake' voters falls acold abbreviated of the BJP leader's repeated claims.
Mr. Adhikari had earlier alleged that amerciable Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants were contiguous successful ample numbers successful West Bengal and had influenced electoral outcomes successful the past. He had urged the EC to instrumentality decisive enactment against specified voters.
The draught rolls, however, amusement nary numerical ground for the assertion of 1 crore amerciable voters. The fig of 1.83 lakh 'ghost' voters, officials said, represents cases flagged during the SIR process aft tract verification.
The TMC, backed by data, seized connected the accidental to equine a crisp counter-offensive, accusing the person of the absorption successful the authorities assembly of disseminating "misinformation".
TMC spokesperson Krishanu Mitra said, "In the draught rolls, astir 58 lakh voters person been deleted. As per BSF data, astir 4,000 radical person crossed backmost into Bangladesh done the Hakimpur border. What we are proceeding is that successful astir 80 per cent Muslim-dominated constituencies, the mean deletion complaint is 0.6%, portion successful Matua-dominated regions the mean deletion complaint is astir 9%."
"The state's wide deletion complaint is astir 4%. If you exclude deaths, who are the remaining deleted voters? Through which borders did they leave?" helium asked.
The enactment has maintained that determination are nary Rohingya voters successful West Bengal and alleged that the communicative of wide infiltration was being politically manufactured successful the run-up to elections.
The BJP dismissed the allegations, with Adhikari mocking the complaint and remarking, "This is conscionable the beginning. Breakfast has conscionable begun. There volition beryllium lunch, beverage and past dinner."
While helium refrained from giving caller numbers connected deletions, Adhikari said helium would talk aft the last rolls are published connected February 14, arsenic per the commission's schedule.
The work of the draught rolls has coincided with heightened governmental sparring implicit alleged cross-border movement, peculiarly successful parts of North 24 Parganas bordering Bangladesh.
A dependable trickle of undocumented Bangladeshis returning done the Hakimpur and Bongaon borders has emerged arsenic a caller flashpoint, sharpening BJP-TMC hostilities implicit infiltration, contested elector rolls and the EC's high-stakes SIR workout months earlier the polls.
Local residents and information unit successful the Bongaon borderline areas said that since aboriginal November, erstwhile the SIR process gathered pace, determination person been instances of undocumented immigrants attempting to locomotion backmost into Bangladesh done constrictive mud tracks and unfenced stretches.
While the numbers progressive are small, the visuals person acquired outsized governmental resonance.
What began arsenic a quiescent and mostly unnoticed reverse question has present been turned into a symbolic spectacle, with some parties utilizing it to reenforce rival narratives — the BJP pointing to infiltration concerns and the TMC arguing that the standard is being exaggerated acold beyond the data.
With the 2026 assembly elections connected the horizon, the conflict implicit numbers — who was deleted, why, and what it signifies — is expected to intensify, arsenic elector information becomes yet different arena for governmental contestation successful the state.
