BJP Won in Bengal Because of Deleted Voters: Shashi Tharoor
He said there were very few appeals in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, unlike West Bengal, where 34 lakh appeals were filed
San Francisco: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has raised questions over the electoral process in West Bengal, suggesting that large-scale deletions from voter rolls and delays in verifying appeals may have influenced the state’s election outcome.
Referring to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Tharoor said around 91 lakh names were removed from the lists, while nearly 34 lakh people filed appeals claiming they were legitimate voters. He noted that only a small number of these appeals were adjudicated before polling.
Speaking at the ‘India, That is Bharat’ roundtable during the Stanford India Conference, 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.”
He added that under the rules, every case must be adjudicated individually, meaning only a few hundred cases were resolved before voting took place.
“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,” he said.
Tharoor further pointed out that the BJP’s victory margin in West Bengal was around 30 lakh votes, close to the number of pending voter appeals.
“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 voters,” he said.
The Congress leader also claimed that voter roll revisions in Kerala may have benefited the Congress party by eliminating duplicate or multiple voter registrations allegedly linked to the CPM.
“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,” Tharoor alleged.
He said there were very few appeals in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, unlike West Bengal, where 34 lakh appeals were filed.
“And that's 34 lakh forms filled by 34 lakh individuals. And of that, only a few hundred have been heard,” he added.
The BJP secured a major victory in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, winning 207 seats and ending the All India Trinamool Congress’s 15-year rule in the state. The TMC won 80 seats.
Following the results, the BJP formed its first-ever government in West Bengal, with Suvendu Adhikari leading the party and taking over as Chief Minister.
