Shashi Tharoor says SIR might have helped BJP win Bengal, aided Congress in Kerala
3 min learnUp to date: Could 11, 2026 02:29 PM IST
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor raised issues concerning the election course of in West Bengal, saying large-scale voter deletions as a consequence of Particular Intensive Revision (SIR) might have affected the ballot consequence. He mentioned round 91 lakh names had been faraway from the voter record in the course of the course of. Of those, about 34 lakh folks appealed, saying they had been real voters.
Tharoor mentioned solely a small variety of these appeals had been checked earlier than polling, whereas most remained unresolved when voting befell.
Talking on the ‘India, That’s Bharat’ roundtable in the course of the Stanford India Convention, Tharoor mentioned, “Within the matter of the SIR, what I’ve mentioned is a official query to reply. Take a look at the Bengal case. 91 lakh names had been struck off the rolls. Of these, 34 lakh dwelling human beings have appealed, saying that they’re round and they’re legitimately entitled to vote. The principles have required every case to be adjudicated individually, so just a few hundred had been adjudicated earlier than the vote. To this present day, there are some 31-32 lakh individuals who is likely to be discovered to have been official voters within the remaining years whereas adjudication carries on, however they’ve missed their probability to vote.”
The BJP secured a historic victory within the 2026 West Bengal Meeting elections, successful 207 seats and ending the Trinamool Congress’s 15-year rule within the state. The TMC secured 80 seats within the elections.
#WATCH | San Francisco, USA: Talking on the roundtable on ‘India, That’s Bharat: Progress Governance and Id’ at Stanford India Convention, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says, “In regards to the SIR… there are official inquiries to reply. Take a look at the Bengal case. 91 lakh names… pic.twitter.com/QpysPZcVV1
— ANI (@ANI) Could 10, 2026
‘BJP’s victory margin near unresolved voter appeals’
Tharoor questioned the dimensions of pending voter appeals mentioning that BJP’s victory margin of round 30 lakh votes is near the variety of unresolved voter appeals.
The Congress chief mentioned, “And the BJP received Bengal by a margin of 30 lakh votes. Now you inform me, is that fully truthful and democratic? That is the query that I ask. Actually, I’ve no drawback with deleting spurious, deleted, absent, migrated voters.”
Nonetheless, on Kerala, Tharoor mentioned that the removing of duplicate voter registrations might have helped the Congress within the state. He claimed there had been circumstances prior to now of double, triple and even a number of voter registrations.
He mentioned, “And significantly in Kerala, I believe the Congress benefited from the deletions as a result of the CPM was lengthy a grasp of double enrolment, triple enrolment, quadruple enrolment-the similar folks in 4 totally different cubicles and so forth. That used to occur. And they also had been eradicated by the SIR, and as you mentioned, in Kerala and Tamil Naduthere had been only a few appeals. However in Bengal, there isn’t a doubt that there have been 34 lakh appeals. And that’s 34 lakh types crammed by 34 lakh people. And of that, just a few hundred have been heard.”
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This time, the Congress in Kerala alone has received 63 seats, the best ever secured by the celebration in Kerala. BJP received 3 seats.
