Mamata TMC Bengal Defeat Reasons Data Analysis: Leaving aside constitutional and political morality and looking at the election data, SIR does not appear to be a factor in TMC’s defeat in Bengal and BJP’s big victory.
Mamata Banerjee TMC Bengal Defeat Reasons Data Analysis: Did Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win because of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter list? This is becoming a controversial question in the context of West Bengal. Since last year, elections have been held in six states and union territories out of the 14 states and union territories where the Election Commission has done SIR of the voter list, but Bengal proved to be the most controversial, because 27 lakh voters here were proved ineligible due to being ‘under adjudication’. Even on the day of elections, they kept waiting for the right to vote, while the names of about 62 lakh voters have been cut in the SIR.
Leaving aside the constitutional or political morality related to SIR and looking at the concrete electoral data, SIR does not appear to be the fundamental factor in BJP’s victory. To understand this, let’s find answers to 3 questions.
First question – What was the impact of SIR outside the traditional stronghold of the parties? Second question – How much were Muslim voters affected by this process? Third question – What was the real reason for BJP’s victory in West Bengal?
Let’s start with the first question. In the assembly elections of 2011, 2016 and 2021, Trinamool and its allies got 226, 211 and 215 seats respectively. There were 124 assembly seats where TMC and its allies won in all three elections. Not including elections before 2011, as the boundaries of assembly constituencies changed in the 2008 delimitation. In this election, Trinamool and its allies faced defeat in 78 out of these 124 seats (polls in one are postponed) and got only 34 seats out of these 124 constituencies.
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In comparison, BJP led 121, 77 and 90 seats in the 2019, 2021 and 2024 elections respectively (here the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha election results are divided on the basis of lead in the assembly). There were 54 assembly constituencies where BJP won all three times. In this election, along with these 54 seats, BJP has also won all the 142 seats which it had won at some time or the other in the last three elections. Apart from these 142 seats, BJP won 65 seats which it had never won before.
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If one wants to understand the new developments in Bengal, one should examine the impact of SIR on the election results by excluding those 100 strong seats which remained with Trinamool and Congress even in 2026. The question is how many of these areas saw a decline in voting between 2024 and 2026? The answer is- 20. Of these, in 2019, 2021, 2024 and 2026, BJP was ahead on 13 seats each time, while Trinamool won 7 seats in 2011, 2016, 2021 and 2026. Of course, due to SIR in these seats, names of 2.1 percent to 38.6 percent voters have been deleted. But, when the change in vote percentage of Trinamool Congress and BJP and the decrease in the number of voters due to SIR are compared, there does not appear to be any relation between the two.
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second question. What was the impact of ‘biased’ deletion of names of voters of a particular religion under the SIR? Regarding SIR, the allegation has been raised loudly that under it, more names of voters were removed in those districts where Muslim population is more. There were 39 assembly constituencies in West Bengal from where Muslim MLAs were elected in 2011, 2016 and 2021. Of these 39 seats, 18 were in districts where the proportion of Muslim population was 50 percent or more as per the 2011 census. This time too, only Muslim MLAs have been elected from these 34 assembly constituencies, out of which only 5 are non-Trinamool candidates. The remaining 5 seats have gone to BJP’s account.
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The total number of Muslim MLAs in the new Bengal Assembly is 40. Even in 2021, their number was more or less the same. However, the share of Muslim MLAs among Trinamool MLAs has increased to 42.5 percent. Clearly, this is an example of communal polarization and not the result of alleged manipulation of voter lists. Congress has also become a victim of this mistake in Assam.
In such a situation, the third question becomes important that what is the real reason for BJP’s victory in West Bengal? The answer is anti-incumbency wave. It has shown a huge impact on the people, polarization has completed the task. Between 2021 and 2026, Trinamool has lost vote percentage in 268 out of 293 seats. Of these, it has suffered a loss of more than 10 percent in 69 seats. In contrast, BJP increased its vote percentage in 270 out of 293 seats and got more than 10 percent gain in 95 seats.
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This change in public support has deep implications. It will be easy to explain this with historical facts. In fact, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front had lost 11 percent of the votes between its landslide victory in the 2006 elections and its crushing defeat in 2011. An accurate region-wise analysis of this change is not possible due to changes due to delimitation, but in 2026, Trinamool’s vote percentage has declined by about 4.7 percent, which is less than that of the Left Front. This is why Mamata Banerjee has been more successful in saving TMC’s number of seats than the Left Front in 2011.
Trinamool Congress now faces a big challenge. What will happen if the remaining Hindu voters turn to BJP or other opposition parties in the state? These voters may now become vocal against Trinamool, as it has lost to BJP. Obviously, the politics of West Bengal is not over yet.
