TMC vs BJP: Will anger over SIR impact electoral battle in Bengal? | India News

“My grandfather chose India over Pakistan, confirmed Murshidabad to be in this country and they erased my name.” A visibly upset younger Nawab, Syed Reza Ali Mirza, a direct descendant of Mir Zafar, told TOI in Murshidabad. A few hundred meters away, a Hazaraduari guide and a Tonga Tana expressed similar grief. Despite documents, they say, going back more than 300 years, their names have been deleted in the SIR process. They still have deep faith in the constitution and the electoral process and believe that their name will be restored in the end. But the feeling of desperation, of being suddenly left out and marked in their own backyard, is hard to miss. Versions of that sentiment were seen across several parts of South Bengal, from Chowrangi in Kolkata to Howrah North and Howrah Central and from Bhangar in South 24 Parganas to Deganga in North 24 Parganas, where many residents claimed that despite having valid documents, they suffered from this lack of cleanliness.That anger is now playing out against a changed electoral backdrop. After the verdict, out of 60,06,675 voters placed under scrutiny, 27,16,393 were deleted. At the same time, the lists also saw new additions through Form 6, taking the number of voters to 6,82,51,008. Even after this addition, however, the total of 83,86,521 remains below the pre-SIR figure, due to which the feeling of trauma continues to run deep in the affected areas.In Howrah’s Tikiapara, Hafeez, an 85-year-old rickshaw puller, challenged Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to inspect his papers and said he could match the CEC document for document. Across several minority pockets, the mood is one of suspicion. Many residents see the erasure not as routine scrutiny but as deliberate exclusion. Several directly linked this to their perceived loyalty to the ruling Trinamool Congress. “EC wants to lose Didi“, “EC wants to defeat Didi”, is a claim that keeps coming up. In Howrah, local Trinamool activists argue that such a move could backfire, as Muslims whose names are on the list may now feel more compelled to vote for the party. Former minister and Kamarhati candidate Madan Mitra made it clear: Even if a vote is valid, that vote goes to the Trinamool.

Many Muslim voters said Mamata Banerjee ensured the communities lived in relative peace, did not openly discriminate against any religion and kept welfare schemes flowing. With that said, voting for Trinamool becomes less a matter of enthusiasm than of duty and protection. This sentiment seems strongest in places where the party is seen as the only viable force capable of keeping the BJP at bay.That consensus, however, is not uniform. In places like Bhangar, Muslim ISF supporters complain of discrimination from the TMC government in housing facilities. In Baharampur, Adhir Chowdhury accused the ruling party of planning a riot in 2024. Sabir Ahmed, director of the Saber Institute, believes that, beyond geography, SIR’s influence can mobilize minority support behind the ruling party. In his reading, the anti-incumbency visible among minorities on issues like OBC reservation and the Waqf Bill has now gone behind more immediate fears about documentation, exclusion and vulnerability. He argues that, for many, the election becomes a question of survival and they may opt for the TMC which has been more strident in its opposition to SIR than other parties like the Left, Congress and the ISF.Ahmed’s reading of the data is that cleaning patterns vary between ASDD stages (absent, transferred, dead or duplicate) and under-adjudication stages. According to him, Muslim-dominated constituencies show relatively high levels of primarily mapped population, while Matua areas appear more unmapped.

But once the under-judgment data is mapped against the Muslim population, the pattern changes. He states that there is a clear positive correlation between under-judgment percentage and Muslim population. His analysis of final rolls also bears the same trend.

He cites constituencies like Shamsherganj, Lalgola, Bhagbangola, Metiabruz, Farakka and Mothabari as examples of large deletions after scrutiny. Data from larger constituencies were also particularly heavily wiped out, particularly in Murshidabad with significant losses in Malda, North Dinajpur, South 24 Parganas, Birbhum, and Matua-dominated pockets of North 24 Parganas and Nadia. Ahmed says places like Domkal and Farakka were over 90% mapped, but have now been largely erased. The researchers took Bhavanipur and Nandigram, the most hotly contested constituencies in these polls, for micro-level analysis and found a disproportionately high rate of deletion among Muslims. All this shows a biased approach to deletion, Ahmed thinks.

At the same time, not everyone agrees that this automatically translates into a clear electoral dividend for the grassroots. Political commentator Shubmoy Maitra said there was no convincing evidence that voters in Muslim-majority districts like Maldah, Murshidabad and North Dinajpur would shift massively to the ruling party simply because of the large-scale wipeout. Instead, he argues, those disaffected with the government may yet restore their faith in the Congress and the Left. Referring to the results of the 2024 general elections, he noted that the Third Front has improved its vote share since 2021 and still retains a meaningful base. On the larger purge, he said the deletion of around 58.2 lakh ASDD names in the draft roll could hurt the ruling party, which has long prided itself on its organizational strength, but cautioned against drawing any straightforward conclusions.Congress campaigned aggressively in Malda and Murshidabad, with Rahul Gandhi leading in Shamserganj. The party has more chances in places like Sujapur, Maltipur, Ratua and Chanchal in Malda and Jalangi, Lalgola, Baharampur, Sagardighi and Farakka in Murshidabad. Similarly, the Left sees its chances in constituencies like Khargram, Kandi, Domkal and Murshidabad. In Chopra, Karandighi and Chakulia in North Dinajpur and Kumarganj in South Dinajpur, proper three- or four-way competition is expected. In such a competition, even a slight shift in loyalty can tip the balance of power. With the primary goal of ignoring the BJP, the minority community will carefully consider its options.It is no secret that Muslim voters have steadily moved towards the grassroots since 2011. With Muslims accounting for about 27% of Bengal’s population, they often hold the distinction between winners and losers. In the two Muslim-majority districts of Malda and Murshidabad, Trinamool’s vote share increased by about 10 percentage points between 2011 and 2021. At the same time, Muslim representation in the Congress and the Left collapsed, while that of the Trinamool grew sharply Yet 2024 also shows that the ruling party in these belts is not unshakable. It slips in Murshidabad and lags behind in 12 assembly segments of Malda. This is what keeps the Congress and the Left relevant, even as their lack of alliances and the presence of formations like Humayun Kabir’s AJUP complicate the picture.Many believe that Mamata Banerjee’s inclusive politics have won the approval of minorities. Others argue that he simply used them as a captive vote bank. Either way, minority support remains one of the main pillars of Trinamool’s electoral strength. After SIR, the anger among minority voters is undeniable. The question is whether rallying support behind Didi is enough to help her win a fourth term, avoiding clear signs of anti-incumbency. We will know in a few days.