Kolkata – The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Saturday lodged a formal complaint with the Election Commission (EC), alleging that lakhs of legitimate voters in West Bengal have been deleted from the electoral rolls under the Summary Revision (SIR) exercise, accusing the commission of acting to favour the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

A TMC delegation, comprising ministers Chandrima Bhattacharya, Sashi Panja, Aroop Biswas, Manas Bhuniya, and Malay Ghatak, met Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal at his office in Kolkata and submitted a memorandum detailing their grievances. Speaking to the media after the meeting, Bhattacharya alleged that the EC was applying a double standard in West Bengal compared to other states. “In the name of cross-checking ‘absent, shifted, and duplicate’ voters, the EC has omitted around 58 lakh genuine voters by branding them as ‘unmapped’,” she said.

Bhattacharya further claimed that the deletions appear to be part of a larger strategy aimed at striking off the names of up to two crore voters to penalize the people of Bengal for repeatedly rejecting the BJP in past elections. “Such actions undermine the very democratic rights of citizens and question the impartiality of the electoral process,” she added.

Aroop Biswas raised concerns about the mobile application introduced by the EC to facilitate verification by ‘unmapped’ voters. According to him, the app does not allow such voters to submit the required details through annexures of forms 6 and 7, effectively depriving them of their voting rights. “When we raised the issue, the CEO said he was forwarding the complaint to Delhi. But how did authorities arrive at such a huge number of omitted voters running into lakhs?” Biswas asked. He also alleged procedural irregularities, noting that the hearing date for objections was arbitrarily altered, initially set for an earlier date and later postponed to December 27, leaving only five days for completion of the process. “Why such undue haste?” he questioned, asserting that the EC and CEO’s office were acting under the influence of the BJP.

The TMC delegation demanded that the details of all unmapped voters and their omissions be uploaded on the EC’s website to ensure transparency. Biswas also highlighted instances where the names of people’s representatives, including councillors and their relatives, had been struck off the rolls without justification.

Addressing the issue, Manas Bhuniya expressed shock at the alleged irregularities. “I have witnessed 41 elections in my career, but I have never seen the Constitution trampled in this manner,” he said, underscoring the gravity of the situation from the perspective of the party.

The complaint reflects growing tensions between the TMC and the Election Commission ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, with the ruling party alleging systemic bias and administrative hurdles that could disenfranchise voters. TMC leaders have demanded immediate corrective measures and assurances that the rights of eligible voters will not be compromised during the ongoing electoral revision process.