On television, especially on news channels, everyone is talking about the West Bengal elections. TMC, which is currently the ruling party in West Bengal, has criticized the Indian media — especially Hindi-speaking channels — for being biased in their coverage of the West Bengal elections and towards the BJP. The BJP, on the other hand, criticizes certain media channels for being biased towards TMC.

Both TMC and BJP have made one thing very clear — the contest is between these two only. And media houses have successfully built a narrative that West Bengal is a binary contest, with no third party in the picture. No Congress, no Left — neither stands close in the competition.

For me, an election is about public trust. It is not about which party wins. What matters is how the election is conducted — is it fair, is the code of conduct applied equally to every candidate? When these boxes are ticked by the Election Commission of India, only then does public trust in institutions and elections grow stronger.

But today, there is one more issue being discussed — the deletion of a very large number of voters from the electoral roll during the Special Intensive Revision, or SIR. This deletion is being seen as indicating a possible regime change in West Bengal. Many believe this is a win-win situation for the BJP, because the deletions are mostly from districts where the Muslim population is higher — and it is widely believed that Muslims do not vote for BJP, preferring TMC, Congress, or the Left instead.

A total of 27 lakh voters have had their names deleted from the electoral rolls. They, along with the West Bengal government, approached the Supreme Court for relief — but the Court rejected the petition, saying that since the decision of the appellate tribunal had not yet come, those voters would not be allowed to vote in this election.

What is ERONET?

SIR is a special drive run by the Election Commission to remove old, duplicate, and fake names from the voters list. To conduct this exercise, the ECI uses its software called ERONET — Electoral Registration Officers Network. It is a web-based centralized system containing the database of 95+ crore voters, with an AI feature that detects photo-similar and demographic-similar entries.

There are certain forms that voters need to fill and submit — either online on the ECI website or in paper to the Booth Level Officer. These are Form 6 (new voter registration), Form 7 (objection or deletion), and Form 8 (correction). Whichever form is submitted goes to the ERO — Electoral Registration Officer — who checks the name, address, documents, and photo. Once everything matches, approval is given.

What ERONET does is match entries automatically from the database. If any duplicate photo or similar details are found across any booth, a notice is generated and sent to that voter asking them to clarify the objection.

The Problem

During the SIR, the ECI runs a special drive where a majority of deletions are done by the automated system — without showing each case to the ERO. The system flags entries as duplicate, shifted, dead, or fake and removes them from the list directly. And this is where the major problem lies — names are being deleted without any notice being issued to the voter.

This is a clear violation of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. According to this Act, no deletion of a voter's name from the electoral roll can happen without notice and without giving the voter a reasonable opportunity to be heard. No amendment, transposition, or deletion can happen without following due process.

The Math That Tells the Whole Story

When these 27 lakh voters reached the Supreme Court, they were sent back to the appellate tribunal. The tribunal itself was formed quite late — the Supreme Court gave the order to form it on 1st April 2026. The Phase 1 voter list freeze date was 6th April 2026, and the Phase 2 freeze date was 9th April 2026. This means voters had only 5 days to file an appeal.

The tribunals began their work around 13th or 14th April — by which point elections were about to begin. So the question is — how were 27 lakh people supposed to file an appeal in just 5 days?

There are 27 lakh pending appeals and only 19 tribunals to hear them. That means each tribunal has to hear approximately 1,42,105 cases. Even if a tribunal disposes of 150 cases per day, it would take 947 days — roughly 2 years and 7 months — to clear all cases. The harsh truth is that these 27 lakh voters have to accept that this year, they will not be able to vote in the West Bengal State Assembly Election.

The Bigger Picture

Several BJP leaders have made statements supporting the deletion of these 27 lakh voters, calling them infiltrators. But deleting names without notice, without giving them a chance to be heard, and without individual scrutiny is a shortcut — and it goes against the very idea of natural justice.

The right to vote of these 27 lakh people has effectively been decided by ERONET and its AI feature. The ECI claims that the automated system flags mismatched names and that the final decision is taken by a human being. But when the system flags too many mismatches, it becomes practically impossible for any human to individually dispose of each case.

The biggest drawback of this AI system is that it does not understand local language patterns — it only matches samples. So in West Bengal, this system ends up deleting "Mondal" matched with "Mandal," or "Sheikh" matched with "Shekh." These are not duplicates — these are the same people written differently across documents.

Winning an election does not matter. What matters is whether the masses trust the process. And when that trust is shaken, the idea of a free and fair election gets compromised.

Thank You,

Raja Ranjan.