The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has initiated a campaign in West Bengal aimed at opposing the ruling All India Trinamool Congress (AITC/TMC) efforts to identify alleged “ghost voters” within the state’s electoral rolls, before the 2026 state assembly polls. The saffron party stated that the drive to scrutinize the electoral records was started by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s party with the covert goal of expunging the names of Hindu refugees and members of linguistic minorities.
The TMC was accused by the BJP of planning a plot to disenfranchise people who had been believed to be against its interests. To this end, the BJP has asked anyone who has been dropped from the electoral records to contact its leaders and activists. BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari urged the Election Commission (EC) to take action against the West Bengal government’s “biased” officers for supporting the political scheme.
He called for action in the state assembly against a Shantipur Block Development Officer in Nadia after the officer, acting in his capacity as the Assistant Returning Officer of two assembly constituencies, told local leaders of all political parties to discuss the electoral rolls. Meanwhile, the BJP has begun an exercise from the Bhabanipur assembly constituency to make sure that the names of its supporters stay on the voter list. On the other hand, party leader Indrajit Khatik stated that the party would extend the campaign to other parts of the state as well.
BJP leader Anupam Bhattacharya conveyed, “We have already begun the primary work before visiting the doorstep of voters in Bhabanipur with the electoral roll to determine whether TMC leaders are eliminating the names of Hindu or non-Bengali voters in the area. We are cautious about Bhabanipur where we received a significant lead in five out of eight Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) wards against the TMC in the 2024 general election.”
“Apart from Bhabanipur, we will also conduct the same exercise in the Port area of the city,” he added. The BJP will carry out the campaign on the ground in urban areas, particularly in Lok Sabha seats with a higher concentration of Hindu and non-Bengali voters, such as Barrackpore in North 24-Parganas and Asansol in West Burdwan.
“The TMC plans to find out our voters and lodge a complaint with the Election Commission of India (ECI), claiming them as outsiders for the elimination of their names from the voter list. Even if anyone’s name is deleted from the voter list, we will ensure the reentry of the particular voter lodging a counter-complaint with the commission,” another party leader highlighted.
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya further asserted, “We complain that the TMC has been winning elections with the help of duplicate and fake voters. We have a database to support our allegations. Now, the TMC has devised a plan to remove Hindu voters, particularly those from Bangladesh and linguistic minority communities.”
Firhad Hakim, a senior TMC politician and the mayor of Kolkata started the campaign in Bhabanipur, the party chief’s own assembly constituency. She recently charged that the BJP had manipulated the electoral records with the EC’s approval and had registered voters from Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana in West Bengal. She granted a 10-day deadline to the leaders and members of her party to launch an initiative to identify the “ghost voters” on the voter rolls.
Notably, duplication in the EPIC (Electors Photo Identification Card) number does not indicate duplicate or fraudulent voters, as the EC has previously explained.
