Shashi Tharoor Explains How Voter Deletion May Have Benefitted BJP In Bengal, Congress In Kerala

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has raised questions on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and suggested that large-scale deletions and delayed verification of appeals may have helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in winning the state with landslide votes.

In West Bengal Assembly election 2026, the BJP won 207 seats, while Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress bagged only 80 constituencies.

Making sense of the West Bengal election verdict, Shashi Tharoor said around 91 lakh names were struck off the lists, with approximately 34 lakh individuals filing appeals claiming they were genuine voters.

Shashi Tharoor said,“In the matter of the SIR, what I have said is a legitimate question to answer. Look at the Bengal case. 91 lakh names were struck off the rolls. Of those, 34 lakh living human beings have appealed, saying that they are around and they are legitimately entitled to vote. The rules have required each case to be adjudicated individually, so only a few hundred were adjudicated before the vote. To this day, there are some 31, 32 lakh people who might be found to have been legitimate voters in the remaining years while adjudication carries on, but they have missed their chance to vote.”

Also Read | BJP trounces TMC, ends Mamata's 15-year rule in Bengal - did SIR swing votes?

He observed that BJP's victory margin, around 30 lakh votes, closely aligns with the number of pending voter appeals, raising questions about whether eligible voters were effectively unable to cast their ballots.

“And the BJP won Bengal by a margin of 30 lakh votes. Now you tell me, is that entirely fair and democratic? This is the question that I ask. Honestly, I have no problem with deleting spurious, deleted, absent, migrated voter,” Tharoor said.

Speaking of Congress' Kerala win, Shashi Tharoor said,“And particularly in Kerala, I suspect the Congress benefited from the deletions because the CPM was long a past master of double enrollment, triple enrollment, quadruple enrollment – the same people in four different booths and so on. That used to happen.”

Also Read | Five ways SIR could shape Bengal election results

“And so they were eliminated by the SIR, and as you said, in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, there were very few appeals. But in Bengal, there is no doubt that there were 34 lakh appeals. And that's 34 lakh forms filled by 34 lakh individuals. And of that, only a few hundred have been heard,” he said.

The BJP secured a historic victory in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, winning 207 seats and ending the Trinamool Congress's 15-year rule in the state. The TMC secured 80 seats in the elections.

After the verdict, the BJP has formed its government in West Bengal for the first time, with Suvendu Adhikari leading the charge with the Chief Minister post.

(With agency inputs)

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