Kolkata:
A record deletion of voters turned out to be one of the major aspects of this year’s assembly elections in West Bengal – one that saw the BJP thundering into the Trinamool fortress, ending a 15-year regime helmed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Just before the elections, over 90 lakh electors in the state found their names deleted from the voters’ lists months after the Election Commission took up a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter rolls, aimed at cleaning its records of dead and duplicate voters.
Trinamool alleged the SIR process was targeted and alleged bias, fearing that it could lose out on its voter base. With the party now losing power, it warrants a look into how the deletions tallied with the vote counts for the Trinamool and the BJP.
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