11 Trinamool poll nominees under SIR cloud, Mamata cries murder of democracy
Telegraph | 28 March 2026
Eleven Trinamool nominees are still unsure whether their names are still in the electoral rolls for the Bengal Assembly polls.
Nine out of these nominees are from the minority community.
State industries minister Shashi Panja, state environment minister Md Ghulam Rabbani, three-terms MLA from Hooghly’s Chanditala Swati Khandoker and the Birbhum strongman Kajal Sheikh alias Faizul Haque are among the nominees who are still unsure whether they will be able to file their nominations.
Three of the candidates are from Murshidabad district where over 11 lakh-plus voters were marked under adjudication in the final rolls which were published on February 28.
The three candidates in Murshidabad are Naoda’s Shahina Mumtaz, Shamshergunj’s Nur Alam and Lalgola’s Abdul Aziz.
In Naoda, the poll panel had marked 29,121 voters under adjudication including Mumtaz, the Trinamool candidate. The numbers of voters under adjudication in Lalgola and Shamshergunj are 1, 08,400 and 99,082.
The Election Commission’s final rolls had 6.44 crore electors in Bengal on the rolls, while 60.06 lakh voters were marked under adjudication, whose fate as voters will be decided by the 705 judicial officers appointed for the process.
The commission is likely to release the second tranche of the supplementary list late on Monday night.
In the five days since the first set of supplementary list was published, the commission has not clarified how many of the voters were deleted on completion of the exercise.
The data released booth-wise for each of the 294 constituencies are yet to be accessed fully. The central poll panel has not released any figures for the number of voters deleted and approved.
Senior officials in the poll panel indicated 35 to 40 per cent of the 36 lakh cases disposed till Tuesday have been deleted.
A large number of voters across the state are still uncertain whether their names figure in the electoral rolls.
"I need to see it in black and white. Even if someone tells me my name is in the voters list, it will not be enough," Panja had told The Telegraph Online on Thursday evening.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who had moved the Supreme Court against the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengal, claimed on Friday 50 per cent voters have been deleted.
“Selective deletion has taken place. In one booth under Suti Assembly constituency, 400 out of the 500 voters have been deleted. In a Basirhat booth, out of roughly 600 electors, around 400 have been deleted. Who has done this? People will definitely ask for answers,” the chief minister told reporters at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International airport before leaving for the campaign trail in west Burdwan district.
The CM reminded that the apex court had directed the commission to publish the supplementary list.
“We have not received the first supplementary list yet. It’s not available in the public domain. This is nothing short of murdering democracy. It is very unfortunate,” Mamata said.
Mamata said in several families only one out of five family members has been retained in the voters list.
“Certain communities have been specifically targeted. Lakhs of names from these communities have been removed,” she said.
Trinamool sources said consultation with legal experts was on in case a candidate’s name is excluded in the voters list.
“We are working to find out whether any candidate has been dropped. Legal consultations are also on about what the steps can be taken in such a scenario,” said a Trinamool insider.
The apex court has directed the commission to publish the supplementary rolls till the last date of nominations in both the phases, April 6 and April 9.
Elections will be held in Bengal on April 23 and April 29.