In a development with clear political undertones, the Election Commission’s latest enumeration data reveals contrasts between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Bhawanipore and Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari’s Nandigram—two constituencies symbolically linked since their fierce 2021 electoral face-off. While Bhawanipore is witnessing a steep 21.71per cent exclusion rate from the draft voter list, Nandigram’s exclusion figure stands lower, at 3.81 per cent.
With the draft roll set for release on December 16, the scale and pattern of deletions across these two seats have already sparked intense scrutiny within Bengal’s political landscape.
Bhawanipore Assembly Constituency, spread across eight wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and represented by the Chief Minister herself, has seen an unusual surge in attention. While Mamata was in Darjeeling reviewing natural disaster damage in North Bengal, she reportedly sent a message through Mayor Firhad Hakim’s phone, alleging that Bhawanipore was being “filled with outsiders.” The enumeration phase ended last week, leaving many curious about exactly whose names are missing from her constituency.
According to the Election Commission, Bhawanipore has 2,06,295 voters. Among them, digitisation of 1,61,509 forms has been completed, covering 78.29 per cent of electors. The Commission’s data shows that 44,787 names—21.71per cent of the constituency’s list—are being excluded at the draft stage. These include 10,897 dead voters (5.28 per cent), 19,471 missing voters (9.44 per cent), 12,547 permanently transferred voters (6.08 per cent), 1,097 duplicates, and 775 classified as “others.”
Statewide, 58,17,851 names—7.59 per cent of the entire electoral roll—are being excluded in this phase. In Nandigram, Suvendu Adhikari’s constituency, 10,599 names (3.81per cent) are being dropped. These consist of 4,569 dead voters (1.64 per cent), 1,108 missing voters (0.4 per cent), 4,396 permanently relocated voters (1.58 per cent), 491 duplicates, and 35 in the “other” category. This means that Bhawanipore alone accounts for roughly one-fourth of the number of exclusions reported in Nandigram.
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The Commission has categorised voters using three mapping lists: self-mapping, progeny mapping, and non-mapping. Voters whose names appeared in the 2002 list fall under self-mapping; those absent in 2002 but linked to parents’ or relatives’ names are placed in the progeny-mapping group; and those lacking both personal and familial entries from 2002 are included in the non-mapping category—this last group will be called for hearings.
In Bhawanipore, 73,306 voters have completed self-mapping, while 63,456 have completed progeny mapping. Ten forms were submitted online. In Nandigram, 1,08,527 voters fall under self-mapping (39.01per cent) and 1,55,763 under progeny mapping (55.99 per cent), with six online submissions recorded.
The political backdrop adds further weight to the numbers. In the 2021 Assembly elections, Mamata Banerjee contested against Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram, ultimately losing by 1,956 votes—a result she challenged legally. She later returned to the Assembly with a landslide victory from Bhawanipore, winning by 58,835 votes in the by-election.
The draft voter list for West Bengal will be published on December 16. Any complaints or discrepancies reported will be examined through hearings, with the Election Commission verifying all documents before finalising the electoral roll. The final list is scheduled for release on February 14.
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