‘The Theft of Assam and Bengal’s Mandate: Mission to Destroy Indian Democracy’

 

‘The Theft of Assam and Bengal’s Mandate: Mission to Destroy Indian Democracy’

 

On May 4, 2026, the results of the Assembly Elections in four states of Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nandu and Union Territory Puducherry were declared.  Reacting to the verdict in her state, Mamata Banerjee retorted: “More than 100 seats BJP looted. Election Commission is BJP’s Commission. Whatever Election Commission has done, along with the central forces and the PM and Home Minister, is totally illegal”. The LoP Rahul Gandhi endorsed her statement saying that “Assam and Bengal are clear cases of election being stolen by BJP with support of the Election Commission. We agree with Mamataji.”   

 

The following day, addressing a combative press conference, Mamata Banerjee alleged that the electoral outcome was not a genuine reflection of the people’s mandate: “The question of my resignation does not arise. We were not defeated by the people, but by a conspiracy. I did not lose.” She accused the Election Commission of acting in favour of the BJP, the contest was not merely pollical, but against the entire system, and called the outcome a black chapter in history.

 

Concurring with her, Rahul Gandhi, in a sternly worded message on May 5, wrote: “Some in the Congress, and others, are gloating about TMC’s loss. They need to understand this clearly – the theft of Assam and Bengal’s mandate is a big step forward by the BJP in its mission to destroy Indian democracy. Put petty politics aside. This is not about one arty or another. This is about India. We have seen this playbook before: Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Lok Sabha 2024 …”

 

There is no denying the fact that anti-incumbency went against Mamata due to misgovernance, corruption, scandals and law and order problem. But, If the anti-incumbency went against Mamat Banerjee in West Bengal, Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, and MK Stalin in Tamil Nadu, how is that the anti-incumbency against Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam didn’t go against him, despite being the most corrupt chief minister that India ever had; yielded absolute power, and known for discriminating and virtually terrorising the Muslims, and polarising the people on communal lines on a scale never seen before. Why is the anti-incumbency gets normalized in the BJP ruled states, having no negative effect on election results? It is imperative to understand how the machinations of the BJP and the chief election commissioner did the electoral damage to the opposition parties in Assam and Bengal.

 

The Delimitation

 

The nation-wide delimitation is expected to be conducted by an independent Delimitation Commission after the completion of Census next year. However, the delimitation in Assam Assembly Constituencies was carried in 2023 by the Election Commission instead, raising suspicion about the motive behind. The delimitation in Assam, based on the 2011 Census, was carried by the Election Commission, reshaping the state's political landscape, reducing the Muslim-majority seats from 35 to 22, It significantly influenced the 2026 assembly election, where the BJP-led NDA secured 102 of 126 seats, altering traditional voting blocs by rearranging the constituencies.  

 

While the assembly seats remained at 126, the boundaries were drastically redrawn.  The exercise reduced the electoral influence of Bengali-speaking Muslim voters in Central and Lower Assam by merging their constituencies with regions having higher non-Muslim population. This ‘gerrymandering’ was designed to favour the ruling BJP. The extent of damage done by the gerrymandering could be gauged from the fact that 18 of the 19 Congress winners and 22 of 24 with its allies are Muslims, mostly those not considered indigenous, while all the 102 winners of the BJP and its allies are Hindus who follow indigenous faiths. So, the Congress is indeed reduced to a ‘Miya’ party- of Bengali speaking Muslims - as alleged by Himanta Biswa Sarma. It is a massive polarisation and unprecedented consolidation of Hindus.  The victory for the NDA is widely attributed to the new boundaries. Major areas like Barpeta and Goalpara West saw significant changes to their demographics, contributing to NDA wins in those areas.

 

The delimitation exercise has resulted in fewer constituencies in minority-dominated regions and more seats in areas where the BJP and its allies have established support bases. This helped Himanta Biswa Sarma to register a hattrick. The electoral map shows that constituencies bordering Bangladesh and once having sizeable population of Bengali-speaking Muslims have turned saffron in these polls. These were constituencies where the Congress and the Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front did very well in 2021 polls.  Because of the delimitation, the BJP and its allies managed to win 11 of 14 Lok Sabha seats in 2024 and now 102 of 126 Assembly seats.

 

The CEO’s arbitrary functioning

 

The Chief Election Commissioner (EC) has not learnt any lessons from the misconceived SIR exercise introduced in 2025 in Bihar just before the Assembly election. It is suspected that the ruling BJP at the Centre having done badly, securing only 240 seats out of 543 in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, wanted the CEC to device a new method of revising the electoral rolls to its advantage. That explains why the CEC is so adamant to continue the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters, unknown earlier, on the eve of elections. The SIR is conducted deviating from the law- Section 25 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Rule 25 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The SIR has proved to be a cumbersome exercise, disfranchising eligible voters, by targeting certain communities, rather than helping to benefit voters by simplifying the process of registration.

 

The whole process is vitiated and deeply flawed and, if continued, will result in the elimination of a very large number of Indian citizens from the electoral roll. The CEC has taken up the job of determining the citizenship by the Union Home Ministry, forcing the people to run helter-skelter in search of the document hard to find, especially for rural people who are not in the habit of preserving such documents.  Thus, a huge chunk of 91 lakh voters was removed from the voter list in West Bengal because they could not produce the documents required to prove their citizenship. The CEC is acting beyond his jurisdiction.  The Article 324 of the Constitution does not empower the Election Commission (EC) to usurp the power of the Home Ministry.  However, the EC has not undertaken the SIR exercise in another election-bound state of Assam, ruled by the BJP, selectively choosing the other election-bound non-BJP ruled states. The CEC also invented a new category of ‘logical discrepancies’ to delete the bonafide voters from the voter list. 

 

The EC also exercised arbitrary power of transferring government servants for election duty. The EC transferred nearly 500 officials in Bengal, including the very top officials - the Chief Secretary, the Home Secretary, DGP, DMs and SPs. without consent or prior knowledge of the state government. Surprisingly, when these wholesale transfers were challenged in Calcutta High Court, the Court quashed the PIL stating that the action of the EC was not arbitrary, nor Bengal given any step-motherly treatment.

 

However, according to PDT Achary, former Secretary-General, Lok Sabha, the ferocity of transfer orders has paralysed the administration of West Bengal, particularly transferring the head of the state administration – the chief secretary.  The Article 324 does not give unfettered powers to the EC for conducting elections. There is no law “that empowers the EC to transfer the head of a state administration or the head of the state police force, while keeping the state govnment in the dark, on the ground that their continuance in their posts will hamper the conduct of free and fair elections.” The underlying assumption in such transfers is that those officers will not allow the EC to conduct elections in a free and fair manner. This is preposterous.   

 

The EC has failed to enforce the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).  Himanta Biswa Sarma made several hate speeches during his campaigns against the Muslims. No action was taken against him. Similarly, the several letters that Mamata wrote to the CEC complaining about the electoral mal-practices fell on deaf ears. The delegation by a team of TMC MPs made no difference. The CEC has been acting arbitrarily as a law unto himself.

 

And following the defeat of the 131^st Constitution Amendment Bill, that linked the reservation for women, in the Lok Sabha on April 17, Narendra Modi addressed the nation on April 18, through the national broadcaster DD.  He abused his position, converting the address into a political speech. In his 29 minutes address, he accused the Opposition, naming the Congress 59 times, for defeating the Bill. He called it bhroon hatya (female foeticide). More than 700 eminent citizens have complained to the CEC against Modi for making such a speech in the midst of election, violating the MCC, and demanded action against him. KC Venugopal submitted a privilege notice against Modi for attributing motives on the voting behaviour of Opposition MPs, constituting contempt of the House.

 

Earlier on March 12, some 193 opposition MPs – 130 from Lok Sabha and 63 from Rajya Sabha – submitted a notice in both the Houses of Parliament seeking the removal of CEC Gyanesh Kumar. They, inter alia, charged him of being ‘subservient’ to the Executive and of ‘deliberate abuse of power and position of a conditional office’. The Chairman of Rajya Sabha, CP Radhakrishnan, and the Speaker of Lok Sabha, Om Birla, have rejected the notice. No specific reasons were cited for the rejection. What is important to note is that it is the first time that the entire opposition expressed no confidence in the CEC for his brazen partisan-arbitrary functioning, and loss of faith in his ability to conduct free and fair elections. The CEC should have resigned. His continuation poses a grave threat to democracy, as he has a long term that ends only in 2029.

 

Delivering the first Dr Rajendra Prasad Memorial Lecture at Chanakya National Law University in Patna on April 4, Justice BV Nagarathna of the Supreme Court said: “that the independence of the Election Commission of India is central to the conduct of elections and the political process. If those who conduct elections are dependent on those who contest them, the neutrality of the process cannot be assured…the risk to a constitutional system lies not only in the violation of rights but also in the weakening of institutions that enforce limits on power.”

                     

The failure of the apex court

 

All the efforts by the West Bengal government to secure intervention of the Supreme Court to stop the arbitrary functioning and abuse of power by the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar have failed.   It is difficult to understand as to why the apex court was reluctant to intervene to correct the numerous anomalies in the SIR exercise, questioning even its constitutional validity, by many eminent citizens in their Petions.  This has emboldened the CEC to excise unbridled power to conduct the elections as per his whims and fancies, in gross violation of existing laws and rules.

 

The Supreme Court Bench headed by the Chief Justice Surya Kant declined the prayer to delay the voter roll freeze on April 6 - the last date for filing nomination for the first phase - so that the voters whose names are included in the ‘logical discrepancies ‘list and whose appeals are pending could get a chance to vote in the election scheduled on 23 April. And the plea of Sr. Advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for West Bengal, that the appellate tribunals should be asked to dispose of the appeals by April 15, is also rejected stating that the tribunal’s hearing cannot be ‘compressed’. The Court even saying that if a voter fails to vote this time, it doesn’t mean he cannot vote next time is so shocking. That is how more than 27 lakh voters, that is 12%, were denied the right to vote in Bengal.  

 

The outcome of the election is undemocratic, not reflecting the true mandate of the people.   How could Bengal election be fair when so many lakhs of genuine voters were left out? They should have been allowed to vote pending disposal of their appeals.  The CEC and the Supreme Court are responsible for not securing justice to them, and going ahead with the election by denying them the democratic right to participate in choosing their government. The universal adult franchise that the founding fathers of our Republic gave to us is turned on its head overnight.  

 

Pratap Bhanu Mehta in an article in The Indian Express, May 5,2026, expresses concern about the direction in which the Indian state is heading: “These results consolidate the unprecedented national electoral prowess of the BJP and the ideological supremacy of Hindutva.  Hindu-Muslim polarisation nearly displaces all other axes...the use of the Election Commission… the taming of the Supreme Court... the effects of the SIR process…the inconvenience and pain it imposed seemed to become a source of the BJP’s strength rather than cause for punishment. Whether or not it decisively tilted the electoral outcome, it became handy for mobilisation and demonstration of its institutional capture. The Assam-Bengal template will go national; it seems to fuel support for the BJP rather than resistance”.