Was Bengal's 92.8% Voter Turnout Shaped By 90.8 Lakh Voter Purge?

The headline figure from the first phase of the Bengal election is 93. Specifically, a record 92.8 per cent voter turnout, a full 10.5 percentage points higher than the 2021 election. That is a statement in favour of the world's largest democracy. But it is also not the full story. The 2026 election has been mired in controversy over the Election Commission-ordered Special Intensive Revision of the voter roll, an exercise meant to cut deceased, duplicate, and illegal voters, as well as those who no longer live in the state. The SIR was challenged, ferociously, by the ruling Trinamool Congress and civil activists, even deep into campaigning for this election, but was firmly backed by the Supreme Court. The consequent purge dropped an estimated 90.8 lakh men and women - around 12 per cent of the electorate - days before voting was scheduled. That meant the voter base shrank to around 6.75 crore, prompting heated debates over the changed baseline skewed voting percentages. And a follow-up debate on how that might impact election outcomes. First, the math. Post the SIR scrubbing, the voter base for Phase 1 was 3.61 crore. Total votes cast were 3.35 crore. The consequent voter turnout has been hailed by the Election Commission and the Bharatiya Janata Party - widely expected to give the Trinamool a run for its money, and possibly even script a historic shock. It has also been hailed by the ruling party, as each tries to reframe this post-voting, numbers-driven narrative into a success story to boost Phase 2 campaigns. Home Minister Amit Shah highlighted conventional wisdom - i.e., high voter turnout = a change in government - and said on X: "The sun of Trinamool's corruption and hooliganism has set." The sun of the TMC's corruption and hooliganism has set. তৃণমূলের দুর্নীতি ও গুন্ডারাজের সূর্য অস্ত গেছে। pic.twitter.com/9n1sSPNeoT - Amit Shah (@AmitShah) April 23, 2026 Doubling down on his party's position on the SIR - that it will cripple a Trinamool that relies on 'votes' from illegal immigrants from Muslim-majority Bangladesh - to stay in power. The BJP also attacked the Trinamool over 'ghuspaithiya', or 'infiltrators' Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee - who argued the SIR was designed to eliminate those who might vote for her party - turned around to claim the high turnout actually meant the people had voted to "protect their rights" and reject the BJP. Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee (File). Both parties insist this high turnout will remain for the next phase (April 29) too. The baseline shift The change in baseline for Phase 1 seats in this election was roughly 37 lakhs, i.e., there were 37 lakh fewer people on the roll across the 152 constituencies that voted Thursday. The counter-argument - to the high turnout figure - is that removing these names pumps up voting percentages, making it look like more people had voted when that might not be the case. The scrubbed names include 27 lakh whose appeals remain pending before tribunals but were told they can't vote in this election, despite having voted in the past, till their cases are settled. But how much, really, did the scrubbing affect turnout percentages? A simple way of working that out is to factor the scrubbed names back into the equation. Assuming then, an electorate of roughly four crores before the SIR in Phase 1 seats, and the same number of actual votes cast, the voting percentage drops, significantly. Warning: these calculations are based on estimates only. Even as estimates, though, a non-scrubbed voter list indicates a voter turnout only marginally higher - roughly 1.85 per cent - than the 2021 election. Why is this significant? Experts suggest a two-point likely impact - arithmetic and political - that can intersect. To illustrate this, consider this - the total number of deletions is slightly more than the Trinamool's winning margin from the 2021 election. Five years ago, Mamata Banerjee's party polled 9.87 per cent more than the BJP. It has also slashed voter lists in 82.7 per cent of seats won by the Trinamool last time, including a handful, such as West Burdwan and South Dinajpur, the party won by slim margins. READ | 'Gave Documents But...': Anger, Worry After Bengal SIR Cuts 90 Lakh In many instances - seats in districts like Murshidabad, for example, the cuts affected Muslim communities, a vote base many see as favouring the Trinamool more than the BJP. In fact, four districts with significant Muslim populations - Murshidabad (66 per cent), Malda (51 per cent), North 24 Parganas (26 per cent), and South 24 Parganas (36 per cent) account for approximately 12.2 lakh cases of voter roll deletions. In 2021 the Trinamool won a majority of seats from these districts - 20 of 22 in Murshidabad, eight of 12 from Malda, and 57 of 64 from North and South 24 Parganas. The totla - 75 seats - was 35 per cent of all seats the party won. To be fair, this was the case in seats the BJP just about claimed too. Dinhata in Cooch Behar, for example, was won by the BJP by less than 60 votes and has reportedly seen over 10,000 names struck off the roll. Balarampur in Purulia district and Moyna in Purba Medinipur appear to be similarly poised for the BJP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi (File) And the Matua community, which contributed heavily to the BJP's strong showing in the 2021 election, were affected too. Community leaders claimed 70 per cent received deletion notices. The voter list scrubbing, therefore, has likely cost both sides, and that makes the poll outcome all the more uncertain. It could all come down to the concentration of cuts for each voting community, which is what the Trinamool has flagged. It could also, and this is the point critics of the BJP make, mean the election is lost before it even begins. The reference is to a 'tipping point', i.e., if the baseline changes significantly enough (and assuming a relatively unchanged actual number of votes) the margins pivot. In a constituency of 200,000 voters, for example, a candidate would, theoretically, need 100,001 votes to win. If the rolls were scrubbed to 180,000, they'd need only 91,000. In both cases, and indeed most scenarios, seats with relatively narrow victory margins stand to be flipped, depending on the number and concentration of deletions. In 2021, around 28 seats were decided by less than 4,000 votes, and as many as 69 by margins of less than five per cent.