Bengal elections could be decided by 65-70 constituencies with razor-thin margins

While competing parties and alliances eye the magic figure of 148 in the 294-member West Bengal Legislative Assembly to form the government in the state, the result of its 2026 Assembly elections could be ultimately influenced by results in 65-70 constituencies where a razor-thin difference exists between a win and loss and where the recent special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has redrawn the battlefield anew.

CM Mamata's seat in focus

Among such crucial seats are Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district and Bhabanipur in Kolkata, which is the den of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The Opposition leader, Suvendu Adhikari, is contesting from both Nandigram, where he defeated Mamata in 2021, and Bhabanipur, eyeing a repeat.

Also read: What the deletion of 91 lakh voters means for Bengal elections | Monideepa Banerjie

The Matua belt of North 24 Parganas and the minority-dominated stretches of the districts of Murshidabad and Malda are also significant. In these regions, the assembly-wise lead in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was often between 8,000 and 15,000 votes. Many of the MLAs who won there in the 2021 Assembly test had scraped through by less than 1,000-8,000 votes. This time, the disappearance of thousands of names from the rolls after the SIR has made the battle in these segments even more interesting.

While both the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main Opposition party, have put up a brave face, claiming that they would reach a bigger tally this time compared to the 2021 polls, they know how much significance one booth, one deleted voter, and one marginal constituency holds. The TMC won 215 seats in the 2021 polls, while the BJP won 77.

Nearly 91 lakh voter names deleted in Bengal

Nearly 91 lakh names have been deleted across Bengal till April 7, nearly 11.85 per cent of the electorate identified last October, ahead of the SIR exercise. Of those, 27.16 lakh deletions came from the “under adjudication” category alone. The state goes to a two-phase election on April 23 and 29.

The epicentre lies in nearly 70 seats across 11 districts. Twenty-five are in Kolkata and the adjoining belt of North 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly. The rest are in Murshidabad, Malda, Bankura, Purulia, the two Bardhamans and the two Medinipurs.

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North 24 Parganas alone has 13 such closely fought seats, Murshidabad 10, Bankura-Purulia nine, Howrah-Hooghly eight and the twin Medinipurs and Bardhamans another eight.

The 2021 election showed how narrow the divide had become. Of the 57 seats decided by 8,000 votes or fewer, the TMC won 29 and the BJP 28. In the 19 seats where the margin was below 3,000, the BJP won 12 and the TMC seven.

Kulti in Paschim Bardhaman was won by the BJP by just 679 votes. The verdict in Dantan was separated by 623 votes, in Ghatal by 966, in Bankura by 1,468, and in Nandigram by 1,956.

Kulti has seen around 38,000 names deleted — more than 50 times the victory margin. Nandigram — the BJP's most symbolic victory and the constituency that turned Adhikari into the saffron camp's key leader — has witnessed 14,462 deletions, more than seven times the margin by which Mamata lost there last time.

In North 24 Parganas and Nadia, where the BJP has tried to build a Hindu refugee-Matua coalition around the citizenship issue, the mismatch between margins and deletions is even starker.

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Bangaon Dakshin in North 24 Parganas, which the BJP won by around 2,000 votes, has seen nearly 7,000 names deleted. Kalyani, another BJP-held seat in Nadia, won by roughly 2,000 votes, witnessed around 9,000 deletions.

In North 24 Parganas, more than 55 per cent of the names kept under scrutiny were eventually deleted. In Nadia, the figure was nearly 78 per cent.

Muslim-majority Murshidabad highly impacted

Murshidabad, one of the TMC's strongest districts, saw the sharpest under-adjudication deletions — 4.55 lakh names. Together with earlier deletions, the district has lost nearly 7.49 lakh voters. North 24 Parganas lost over 12.6 lakh names in the two phases combined, while Malda lost 4.59 lakh. South 24 Parganas saw over 10.91 lakh names disappear, and Kolkata alone lost nearly 6.97 lakh.

Of the metropolis's 16 assembly seats, only Beleghata and Bhabanipur are estimated to have recorded SIR deletions lower than the previous victory margin. In every other constituency, deleted names exceed the winning margin.

Over 51,000 names deleted in Mamata's den

One of the TMC's safest bastions, Bhabanipur, saw 51,005 names deleted, including 3,893 removed after being kept in the "under consideration" category. Yet, even there, the deletions remain below the scale of the TMC's victories. The party won the seat by around 29,000 votes in 2021, and Mamata later retained it in the bypoll with a margin of nearly 58,000.

Dinhata in Cooch Behar district in north Bengal perhaps remains the most dramatic anecdote of the state’s volatility. BJP's Nisith Pramanik, a former Union minister, beat TMC's Udayan Guha there by only 57 votes in 2021. Months later, after a bypoll, Guha returned with a margin of 1.64 lakh.

Also read: Mamata attacks BJP with 'snake' jibe as Bengal poll battle hots up | Capital Beat

Before the adjudication process began, there were around 111 assembly segments where the number of voters under scrutiny exceeded the winning margin of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in the segments. Even after the process, deleted voters outnumber the Lok Sabha victory margin in at least 120 assembly seats.

In 44 seats, number of deleted more than 2021 win margin

The scale of the churn becomes clearer in 44 assembly seats where the number of names struck off the rolls is greater than the margin by which the winner had prevailed in 2021.

The TMC holds 24 of these seats and the BJP 20, underlining that neither side is insulated from the impact of the revision. The BJP-held list includes emblematic constituencies such as Nandigram and Gaighata (in North 24 Parganas).

The cluster is spread across some of the state's most politically sensitive districts. Purba and Paschim Bardhaman and Nadia account for five such seats each. North 24 Parganas and Paschim Medinipur have four each, while Cooch Behar, Dakshin Dinajpur and Murshidabad have three each. Purba Medinipur and Howrah account for two each.

In effect, the faultline runs through both the BJP's expanding belt in northern and western Bengal and the TMC's entrenched strongholds elsewhere, making the impact of the deletions impossible for either camp to ignore.

More Hindus removed than Muslims

When comparing the booth-level data before and after the SIR, one finds that 63 per cent of the deleted voters are Hindus, as against 34 per cent Muslims. While it is significant since the Muslims account for 27 per cent of the state’s population, as per the census done in 2011, the fact that nearly 58 lakh Hindus have been disenfranchised could also have an impact on the elections.

Also read: SC to hear plea against frozen Bengal voters' list on April 13

Based on 2021 turnout patterns, a one per cent swing in vote share could flip at least 15 of these seats. A two per cent shift could alter more than 20.

TMC, BJP target each other

"The BJP is using the commission to steal votes and delete names. But we have understood the game. The answer will be given through the ballot box," TMC leader Arup Chakraborty said.

The BJP claims the revision has exposed "illegal Bangladeshi" and dead voters while ending the scope for bogus voting.

"In 2024, the BJP lost several seats because the Left dented anti-TMC votes. If that vote consolidates and even a few thousand fake voters' names go out of the rolls, these 65 seats can completely alter the result," BJP leader Debjit Sarkar said.

(With agency inputs)