Amid the Election Commission (EC)’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, the Opposition parties have been up in arms over the contentious exercise, alleging that a section of voters are being targeted for “deletion” of their names in the rolls.
Already, Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has challenged the SIR in the Supreme Court – and even appeared in the apex court to argue her case in person – with Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav also announcing his party’s intention to move the top court.
At a press conference in Lucknow earlier this week, Yadav alleged that the EC was targeting Muslims and other marginalised groups like Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBCs), many of which make up the SP’s core support base, at the behest of the BJP.
Yadav claimed “targeted deletions” were taking place, particularly in those Assembly segments of UP where the BJP lost in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “What was the margin? If we see the 2022 Assembly polls, will a shift of merely 5,000 votes have an impact on the result?” Yadav said.
Echoing similar concerns while alleging voter list manipulation through the SIR exercise, Mamata Banerjee said at a press conference in Kolkata on January 13: “They (EC officials) are not accepting domicile certificates or any other documents of the state government. Why are they doing this? They (the Opposition BJP) are thinking that by doing such things, they will win Bengal. They are playing the same game in Bengal that they had played in Bihar or Maharashtra.”
Sources in the SP and TMC said the parties are concerned about seats where the victory margin in previous UP and Bengal Assembly polls were low, and where a shift of 3,000-5,000 votes could tilt the scales in the BJP’s favour in the coming elections.
An analysis of 2021 Bengal and 2022 UP Assembly polls, and their comparison with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, shows there is a long list of such seats where the victory margin was less than 5,000 votes in the Assembly elections and where the leading party changed between the Assembly and 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
While Bengal is due for the Assembly elections in March-April this year, UP will head to polls in early 2027.
West Bengal
In the 2021 Assembly elections, in which the TMC swept the state by winning 215 of the total 294 seats and the BJP emerged as the main Opposition with 77 seats, there were 35 seats where the result was decided by a margin of less than 5,000 votes.
Of these 35 seats, the BJP had won 22 and the TMC 12. An Independent candidate defeated the BJP in the Kalimpong seat by 3,870 votes.
The low-margin seats in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls.
Mamata Banerjee had lost her own election from Nandigram – she later entered the Assembly by winning the Bhawanipur seat in a by-election – where she was narrowly edged out by her lieutenant-turned-BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari by 1,956 votes, whom she had chosen to confront in his stronghold.
By the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the leading party had changed in 12 of these 35 Assembly segments in Bengal. While the BJP ceded 6 low-margin segments it had won in 2021 to the TMC in 2024, the TMC lost 6 such segments to the BJP.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP retained a leading position in 16 segments it had won by narrow margins in 2021. But the TMC managed to retain a leading position in just 6 such segments.
The average winning margin in these 35 seats in the 2021 Assembly polls was 2,680 votes. But in the Lok Sabha polls, the average leading margin jumped to 13,367 votes.
In these 35 seats in the 2021 Assembly elections, the CPI(M) had played a damaging role in 17 seats by securing more votes than the winning margins. The Congress had placed third in 9 such seats.
The smallest winning margin in 2021 was recorded by the BJP in Dinhata at 57 votes. In the 2016 Assembly polls, the TMC had won this seat with the BJP finishing a distant third.
Uttar Pradesh
Across UP’s 403 Assembly seats, there were 53 seats in the 2022 polls where the winning margin was less than 5,000 votes. At 27, the BJP had won a majority of these seats, with its main rival SP winning 21. The BJP’s allies Apna Dal (Soneylal) and NISHAD Party had won 3 and 1 such seats, respectively, while Congress had won 1.
The low-margin seats in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
In total, the BJP won 255 seats and the SP 111 seats in the 2022 Assembly polls.
A cause of concern for both the BJP and SP is the result of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, which saw the leading party flip over to a rival alliance in 29 of these 53 Assembly segments compared to the 2022 Assembly polls. In a major setback, the BJP saw 18 Assembly segments it had won in the 2022 Assembly being led by the SP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP also ceded the lead in 3 segments to the Congress and 2 segments to the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram). In 2024, the SP also managed to take the lead in 2 Assembly segments won by the Apna Dal (Soneylal) and 1 won by the NISHAD Party in the 2022 polls.
In total, the SP clinched 21 Assembly segments in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls where the NDA had won in the 2022 Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP managed to maintain its leading position in just 4 Assembly segments it had won in the 2022 Assembly polls, while the SP retained 12 segments and ceded just 3 to the BJP.
Across the remaining seats among the 53 low-margin segments, the leading parties in 2022 and 2024 changed but remained within their own alliances.
The average winning margin of these 53 seats was 2,144 votes in the 2022 Assembly polls, rising to 20,112 in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.