How Bengal’s SIR Triggered an NRC-like Surprise

At first glance, West Bengal’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists and Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) appear to be parallel exercises separated only by time. In reality, though they were conducted nearly seven years apart, both processes carried similar political expectations—and both ended up surprising almost everyone.

This is why the question is now being raised across political and administrative circles: Has Bengal’s SIR become its own Assam-like NRC moment?

While the objectives of the two exercises were formally different, they shared several structural similarities. The NRC in Assam aimed to identify illegal immigrants by updating the National Register of Citizens. West Bengal’s SIR, on the other hand, was officially designed to update electoral rolls—adding new voters, removing deceased individuals, migrants, and non-citizens.

Despite this distinction, the SIR in Bengal was widely perceived as an exercise that could expose the scale of illegal Immigration in the state, much like the NRC had done in Assam.

West Bengal has long been at the center of political debate over alleged large-scale immigration from Bangladesh, with claims that demographic changes have altered electoral outcomes in several districts. BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari went as far as claiming that “one crore Rohingyas and Bangladeshis” were residing in the state.

As the SIR process began, fear and speculation spread rapidly. Reports emerged that suspected illegal immigrants had started crossing back into Bangladesh. Trinamool congress MLA Krishanu Mitra cited BSF data to claim that nearly 4,000 such individuals crossed into Bangladesh through the Hakimpur border alone.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee strongly opposed the SIR exercise from the outset. She accused the BJP and the Election Commission of India (ECI) of attempting to manipulate voter rolls ahead of the crucial 2026 Assembly Elections.

The controversy intensified when the ECI released the draft SIR data on December 16. According to official figures, more than 58 lakh voter entries were identified for deletion across the state.

However, a closer look at the data revealed results that ran counter to dominant political narratives. As reported by PTI, in nearly 80% of Muslim-dominated constituencies, the average deletion rate stood at just 0.6%. In sharp contrast, Matua-dominated regions saw an average deletion rate of around 9%.

The Matua community—largely Bengali Hindu refugees who migrated from present-day Bangladesh—has traditionally been viewed as electorally significant, particularly by the BJP.

Multiple media reports and independent analysis of ECI data indicated that Bangla-speaking Muslim-majority areas in West Bengal experienced only marginal deletions from the electoral rolls.

An analysis published by The Indian express further added a surprising dimension. It noted that Assembly constituencies with a substantial Hindi-speaking population dominated the list of top ten seats with the highest deletions—ranging from 15% to 36% of voters.

Among these were Jorasanko (36.66%), Chowringhee (35.45%), and Kolkata Port (26.09%).

Notably, Muslim-majority Assembly constituencies accounted for less than 10% of total deletions statewide. District-wise data showed that Malda recorded a deletion rate of 6.31%, while Murshidabad—often cited in immigration debates—had a comparatively low rate of just 4.84%.

Reacting sharply to the figures, Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee questioned the credibility of earlier claims. “The Election Commission has made a mockery of the entire narrative. They spoke of one crore Rohingyas. Did they even find one infiltrator?” he asked.

The situation bears a striking resemblance to Assam’s experience with the NRC. When the final NRC was published in August 2019, it excluded around 19 lakh people—approximately 12.5% of applicants—far fewer than anticipated.

In 2024, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stated that about 7 lakh of those excluded were Muslims. Still, the outcome dissatisfied multiple stakeholders. The All Assam Students Union (AASU) felt the exclusions should have been higher, while the BJP publicly expressed disappointment.

Then Assam minister Chandra Mohan Patowary presented district-wise data that deepened the controversy. Border districts like South Salmara (7.22%), Dhubri (8.26%), and Karimganj (7.67%) recorded relatively low non-inclusion rates. Surprisingly, non-border districts such as Hojai (32.99%) and Darrang (30.90%) topped the list.

Patowary later attributed this to the alleged misuse of legacy documents in border districts, reiterating the government’s demand for an “error-free NRC.”

West Bengal’s SIR has now produced a similarly unexpected pattern. Of the nearly 58 lakh deletions in the draft rolls, only about 1.83 lakh were flagged as potentially “ghost” or fraudulent voters.

The Trinamool Congress has seized upon these figures, arguing that they puncture the BJP’s long-standing claims of massive Bangladeshi infiltration.

TMC spokesperson Arup Chakraborty asserted that most affected voters were “migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar living in Bengal, not infiltrators from Bangladesh.”

Importantly, the SIR process is still ongoing. Around 1.36 crore voters have been flagged for further verification of legacy documents, and the claims-and-objections window remains open until January.

For now, however, the draft SIR appears to mark West Bengal’s own NRC-like moment—one that has upended political assumptions and forced a reassessment of long-held narratives. With January 15 approaching and over a crore voters still undergoing verification, the final outcome could yet reshape the state’s electoral landscape.