‘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. It is an immoral victory. 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, but the result of systematic manipulation. We were not defeated by the people, but by a conspiracy." 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 Mamata 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 in Assam
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. 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 CEC’s arbitrary functioning
The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) 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 established law. The SIR's cumbersome
exercise has disfranchised millions of eligible voters, targeting certain communities.
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.
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. The CEC
has not undertaken the SIR exercise in the 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 CEC exercised arbitrary power of transferring government servants for election duty. He transferred nearly 500 officials in Bengal, including the top officials - the Chief Secretary, the Home Secretary, DGP, DMs and SPs. without consent or prior knowledge of the state government.
According to PDT Acharya, 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 government 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). The state machinery was misused for election campaigns by Narendra Moodi and Amit Shah. Himanta Biswa
Sarma made several hate speeches during his campaigns against the Muslims. Mamata's several letters to
the CEC complaining about the electoral mal-practices fell on the deaf ears. The delegation
by a team of TMC MPs made no difference. The CEC has been acting as
a law unto himself.
And following the defeat of the 131st 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, targeting the Congress 59 times, for defeating the Bill. He called it bhroon hatya (female foeticide).
In an unusual and unprecedented move, 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 charged him, inter alia, of being ‘subservient’ to the Executive and of ‘deliberate
abuse of power and position of a constitutional 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 role, 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 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 CEC 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 Petitions. 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 saying that if a voter fails to vote this time, it doesn’t mean he cannot vote next time is shocking.
The TMC claims that in as many as 31 seats, the victory margins of the BJP were less than the number of voters deleted during the SIR. Some 91 lakh names were struck off the electoral rolls in Bengal; out of this, around 34 lakh voters appealed against the deletion of their names, and as per the law the appeals should have been disposed of before the election; but only a few hundreds have been adjudicated, thus denying as many as 32 lakh voters their legitimate right to vote. And the BJP won the Bengal by a margin of 30 lakh votes.
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; and conducting the flawed election was considered more important than the citizens' right to vote. 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”.
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