Parties vie for pie of women votes as SIR alters equations
The Statesman | 19 April 2026
The Assembly election in West Bengal is one of the most fiercely-fought ones. While the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is going to be a decisive theme for the polls, the focus on women voters is firmly in place. They have been the main support base for the ruling Trinamul Congress. The opposition, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is now desperately trying to woo the women voters in the state.
A CSDS post-poll survey found that Trinamul is the only major party in India which consistently receives more votes from women than men. In 2016, nearly 52 per cent of TMC’s vote share came from women voters. The turnout data shows their consistency. In 2021, women’s turnout stood at 81.75 per cent, slightly higher than that of men, 81.37 per cent.
Figures shared by the Union law and justice minister in the Parliament stated that the number of women voters in West Bengal has fallen to its lowest level in a decade. Just before the SIR, the rolls recorded 969 women for every 1,000 men, whereas post the publication of electoral rolls on March 28, the ratio declined to 964.
The TMC has voiced their concern over a large number of women voters finding their names deleted from the rolls. The party in its X handle posted recently: “57 lakh women voters wiped off Bengal’s rolls between 2024 and 2026, through a rigged process shaped by @ecisveep and the same Delhi “zamindars” who have always been uncomfortable with women who think, speak, and decide for themselves.
“This is BJP’s SIR. 3.73 crore women voters in 2024, gutted to 3.16 crore in 2026. The voter gender ratio has hit a 14-year low, the first fall since 2012, engineered in an election year by a party that knows it cannot survive Bengal’s women voting freely.”
So, the question, if the deletion will affect the ruling TMC or not, begs an answer.
Senior political journalist Sajeda Momin feels one of the reasons why such a large number of women voters’ names have been deleted is because BJP realises that women will vote for Mamata. “This is the very reason they have also targeted the minorities in the SIR. These two are the two core vote banks of the TMC,” she said.
Ms Momin feels this election will be tough for Mamata. “I do not see a free and fair election happening this time as the BJP has been trying to take control of the polls through the ECI. So, she is fighting the polls with both her hands tied to her back,” she said.
But, can the women’s votes be consolidated? “Hindi-speaking Hindu voters are most likely to vote for the BJP, whereas Bengali-speaking rural, less educated women are more likely to vote for the TMC,” said Zaad Mahmood of the political science department at Presidency University. He added: “We have to find out what group constitutes the 57 lakh voters.”
The professor feels that there might be another consolidation (of votes) in favour of TMC like in 2021 if a narrative is built that majority of names excluded are of minorities and this has happened when the BJP is not in power in the state. What will happen when they come to power?
Professor Subhamoy Moitra from Indian Statistical Institute is not ready to jump to conclusions as he is not sure if we should assume that all women vote for the TMC. “It is more of an assumption that women voted more for the TMC because of schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar. Is there any definite statistics, I don’t know. Yes, TMC will have problems with many women voters being deleted from the list, if all other factors from the last election are kept the same. But we know that every election is different in nature. In this election, it may so happen that because of the present changes, more women vote for the TMC,” said prof. Moitra.