The most critical number in West Bengal's 2026 election is not 294 — the total seats in the state assembly. It is not even 148 - the majority mark to get to the ruling side of the House. It is not 158 or 130 — the BJP and TMC tallies in the poll of polls, announced soon after the polling ended on April 29. It is 9,102,577, voter names the Election Commission removed from Bengal's rolls before this election.
For better understanding of the magnitude of this number, this figure of 9 million is more than Switzerland's population, which stands at 8.9 million as of 2024-2025, according to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. And these many voters were gone from the electoral map in a single pre-election voter roll revision, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), conducted between October 2025 and April 2026. The precise demographic and geographic impact of this exercise will only become clear on May 4, when the counting begins in the swing seats where deleted names outnumber the margins that decided the last election.
Nandigram And Beyond:Constituencies To Watch Closely in West Bengal Election 2026
West Bengal's 2026 result will be decided in a cluster of constituencies that have changed hands in every significant election since 2011. In many of them, the voter roll revision has made the 2021 result an unreliable guide to 2026. That is where this story begins.
Figures That Matters In This Election
A total of 9,102,577 voters were removed from West Bengal's electoral rolls during the SIR exercise. The state's total eligible electorate reduced by 11.88 per cent, from 76,637,529 to 67,534,952. After supplementary additions, the final voter count stood at 68,251,008.
Amid protests, the revision process began in December 2025, initially leaving out 58 lakh names. Then there was another level of scrutiny leading to further deletions, and 27 lakh names were removed in early April 2026. West Bengal’s total electorate dropped around 12 per cent – from 7.6 crore in 2024 to 6.7 crore, according to the Election Commission of India SIR Draft Roll, December 2025.
This figure could alter the political landscape of individual constituencies decisively.
How SIR Played A Key Role In Bengal Polls
The political battle over what the SIR means is still up for debate. Of the deleted names, 63 per cent were Hindus and 34 per cent were Muslims, according to booth-level analysis of ECI data cited by The Tribune and The Federal. The centre's claim is that they cleaned an inflated list of duplicate and deceased voters. Incumbent Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee moved the Supreme Court, calling it partisan. The Left called it an assault on the constitutional right to vote.
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