Kolkata, April 8 The West Bengal state assembly elections in 2026 will be held on a newly drawn electoral map by the Election Commission, which has removed over 90.83 lakh names from the voter rolls, significantly altering the electoral landscape in numerous constituencies and creating uncertainty for both the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The state's electorate has shrunk from 7.66 crore to 6.77 crore, forcing the TMC and the BJP to contest the two-phase elections later this month in a different environment than that in which Mamata Banerjee returned to power in 2021.
The most significant changes have occurred in the districts that have historically been key to Bengal's political dynamics – the areas with a large minority population and the southern region that has been a stronghold of the TMC since 2011, as well as the Matua refugee pockets in North 24 Parganas, Nadia, and parts of North Bengal that contributed to the BJP's rise after 2019.
However, the political impact is not uniform. The TMC's previously strong positions in southern Bengal appear weaker, while the BJP remains firmly entrenched in north Bengal and Junglemahal, but the party's key social base – the Matua vote – now seems less secure.
The districts that have traditionally been important for the TMC – North and South 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Nadia, Malda, Hooghly, Howrah, Uttar Dinajpur, and Purba Bardhaman (accounting for 178 of Bengal's 294 assembly seats) – have seen nearly 66.6 lakh deletions, or almost three-fourths of the statewide reduction.
At the same time, the Election Commission has removed names from 55 constituencies spread across the Matua belt, affecting the BJP's reliable political asset – the refugee vote.
The most significant changes are visible in the districts bordering Bangladesh, where the citizenship and migration issues have long been central to the political contest between the TMC and the BJP.
North 24 Parganas, with 31 assembly seats, has lost 12.6 lakh voters. South 24 Parganas, the TMC's largest stronghold with 33 seats, has seen 10.91 lakh names deleted. Murshidabad, where the ruling party has traditionally dominated most of the district's 22 assembly segments, has lost 7.48 lakh names, while Nadia, with 17 constituencies, has shed 4.85 lakh, and Malda, with 16 seats, has lost 4.59 lakh.
"The TMC's electoral strategy in Bengal depends on three key factors – the minority belt, women voters, and the two 24 Parganas districts. If these segments shrink even slightly, the BJP becomes competitive in many more constituencies," said political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty.
The gender balance of the electorate has also shifted. Before the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, Bengal had 959 women voters for every 1,000 men.
After the revision, this figure has dropped to 950, suggesting that the women's voting bloc, another constituency that has consistently supported Mamata Banerjee since 2011, has also been affected.
However, the revision may also have had a positive impact.
In districts with a large minority population, the revision has created a sense of insecurity that appears to be pushing Muslim voters towards greater consolidation behind the TMC, potentially limiting the influence of smaller Muslim parties such as ISF, AJUP, and AIMIM.
"This is where the numbers can still matter. If the sense of threat leads to near-total consolidation, the TMC may recover many of the votes it has lost," said political analyst Suman Bhattacharya.
For the BJP, the biggest concern lies in the Matua refugee belt, where community leaders claim that nearly 70 per cent of Matua families have been affected by the revision.
With more than 1.3 crore voters spread across at least 55 assembly constituencies, the Matuas have long been a crucial political force in Bengal.
Party insiders say that the Matuas and other refugee-dominated pockets accounted for more than half of the BJP's 77 seats in the 2021 assembly election, and this support base remained largely intact in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
In Nadia, nearly 78 per cent of the voters were removed from the voter list – the highest rate in the state.
However, the party believes it can still make gains in north Bengal, where its political position remains strong and the deletions appear to have primarily affected minority-dominated areas.
Cooch Behar lost 2.42 lakh voters, Jalpaiguri 2.01 lakh, Darjeeling 1.9 lakh, and Uttar Dinajpur 3.63 lakh. The BJP has been dominant in this region since 2019, and the party believes that the deletions there will limit the TMC's gains in the minority belt.
In Junglemahal too, the BJP's core vote appears relatively undisturbed. Jhargram lost only 55,364 names, while Purulia shed 1.91 lakh, and Bankura 1.43 lakh.
"We believe that the revision has removed ineligible names in areas where the BJP was previously weak, which could partly offset the losses in the refugee belt," said another BJP leader.
A TMC leader, however, argued that the deletions have disproportionately affected minorities, women, and migrant workers, the very groups that have sustained TMC's dominance since 2011.
"This is not a voter roll revision, but a political redrawing of Bengal's electoral map to help the BJP. But we will still win," he said.
The greatest uncertainty lies not in the strongholds of either party, but in the marginal areas where the electoral arithmetic has become unpredictable.
Across more than 120 assembly constituencies, the number of deleted voters is higher than the victory margins recorded in the 2021 assembly election or in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
In 2021, the TMC won at least 45 seats by margins of less than 10,000 votes, while the BJP secured around 20 within the same range.
The 15 districts voting in the first phase on April 23 account for 39.57 lakh deletions across 152 seats, while the eight districts going to the polls in the second round on April 29 carry 49.38 lakh deletions across 142 seats.
In Bengal's post-SIR election, the battle may finally be decided not just by those who turn out to vote, but also by those whose names were deleted.