There was intense excitement throughout the year regarding the next assembly elections in West Bengal. While the voting process, border concerns and growing communal lines dominated governance, the Special Intensive Revision of Voter List (SIR) and cross-border unrest became decisive issues in the state’s political arena.
If the results of 2024 Lok Sabha elections decided the electoral equations, then the politics of 2025 decided the atmosphere.
Political instability emanating from neighboring Bangladesh persisted throughout the year. Political instability across the border and reports of communal violence ranging from attacks on minorities, including the murder of a Hindu man, directly influenced the political discourse in West Bengal.
With the 2026 assembly elections approaching, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress has taken an aggressive stance to further strengthen its Bengali identity and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of institutional and linguistic discrimination in the name of national security. This strategy of Banerjee had largely neutralized the Hindutva wave of BJP in the 2021 elections.
At the center of the ongoing turmoil in Bengal is the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Review (SIR), the first such exercise since 2002. Under the amendment, more than 58 lakh names were removed from the draft voter lists published due to various reasons ranging from death and migration to duplication and untraceability of address.
A large section of voters, especially in the border districts and refugee-inhabited areas of Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas, Malda and parts of North Bengal, are feeling uncomfortable with the notice, hearing and documentation requirements.
For the ‘Matua community’, a Dalit Hindu voter group that affects about 50 assembly seats, the amendment has reignited long-standing concerns over paperwork and citizenship.
The Trinamool Congress described the process as a threat to genuine voters and accused the Center of disenfranchising such people months before the elections.
BJP supported this amendment calling it a constitutional requirement and accused the ruling party of giving protection to illegal infiltrators.
Opposition leader Subhendu Adhikari said, “A clean voter list is the foundation of democracy. There is no need for real voters to fear.
As the court hearing regarding SIR progressed, the voter list, rather than the governance system, became the main focus of the election discourse.
Political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said, “Bengal has entered a cycle where the election debate focuses on votes rather than schemes. This changes both the emotional intensity and risk of the election campaign.
In June, Sunali Khatoon, a pregnant migrant woman from Birbhum, was detained by Delhi Police on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi and sent across the border.
She was repatriated with her newborn son in December following the Supreme Court’s intervention, which the Trinamool Congress described as a symbol of discrimination and institutional excesses.
Reports of illegal Bangladeshi citizens being deported from various areas of West Bengal along the international border also gave rise to conflicting political claims.
The BJP presented such activity as evidence of exposed infiltration while the Trinamool Congress accused the opposition of spreading panic and creating false stereotypes against Bengali-speaking people.
As the years passed, the shadow of Bangladesh became deeper. BJP leaders repeatedly cited cross-border incidents to raise concerns over minority rights and regional security.
Trinamool Congress also condemned the attacks on minorities in Bangladesh and accused the BJP of taking advantage of regional instability to polarize people.
Communal polarization within the state deepened after riots broke out in parts of Murshidabad in April. The riots, sparked by protests against the Waqf Amendment Bill, included incidents of arson and the murder of three people.
BJP described this violence as evidence of anarchy and minority appeasement. Alleging provocation and outside interference, the Trinamool Congress said the administration took decisive action to restore order.
Murshidabad remained politically sensitive throughout the year, especially after the foundation stone of a mosque to be built on the lines of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was laid again, leading to heightened rhetoric amid the tense atmosphere.
Institutional shocks added to the unease while the apex court’s decision to quash nearly 26,000 school recruitments linked to irregular appointments through the School Service Commission dealt a deep blow socially and politically.
