Huge turnout amidst SIR shadow caps ballistic battle for Bengal

If the first phase tested whether the BJP could retain its north Bengal citadel, the second and final round was always the real battle for the saffron party on whether it could breach the ruling TMCs southern fortress of Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas and Purba Bardhaman.

The West Bengal assembly polls ended on Wednesday with what the election watchdog said was the state's highest-ever voter turnout of 92.47 per cent, leading to mouth-watering anticipation ahead of the announcement of results on Monday as both contenders sounded sanguine about their victory prospects. Wednesday's second phase saw a 91.66 per cent turnout by closing time, with thousands of voters still waiting in queues to cast their ballots. The concluding phase covering 142 constituencies in south Bengal appears poised to match the first phase's record voter participation of 93.19 per cent by the time final numbers are collated. The Election Commission said a 91.66 per cent turnout was recorded in the second phase till 7.45 pm, putting the combined poll percentage over the two-phases at 92.47 per cent. The first phase of polling was held on April 23. ''This is the highest-ever recorded poll participation since Independence in West Bengal,'' it said. The capital Kolkata recorded a turnout of around 87 per cent at that time, with Purba Bardhaman district topping the charts at 92.46 per cent. The scale of participation sent out an overarching political message - practically every single eligible voter in the state felt personally invested in the electoral process and its outcome. They turned out in numbers large enough to make every narrative contested and every claim of momentum politically loaded. If the first phase tested whether the BJP could retain its north Bengal citadel, the second and final round was always the real battle for the saffron party on whether it could breach the ruling TMC's southern fortress of Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas and Purba Bardhaman. At the centre of the larger political fight stood Bhabanipur, no longer merely a south Kolkata constituency but Banerjee's political refuge, her emotional home turf and the BJP's chosen psychological battlefield. Banerjee, 71, seeking a fourth consecutive term after 15 years in power, faced Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari in a prestige battle widely seen as a symbolic rematch of Nandigram, where Adhikari had defeated her in 2021 after crossing over from the TMC to the BJP. Five years later, the duel shifted to Banerjee's own bastion. For the TMC, retaining Bhabanipur is about protecting the chief minister's authority in her own backyard. For the BJP, breaching it would puncture the aura of invincibility around Bengal's most powerful political figure. The constituency witnessed nearly 87 per cent polling, sharply up from around 61 per cent in the 2021 assembly polls and 57 per cent in the bypoll that brought Banerjee back to the House. Banerjee – who usually votes later in the day and prefers staying indoors on the day of polls – broke convention and hit the ground before 8 am, moving through Chetla, Padmapukur and Chakraberia areas following complaints of alleged intimidation of local TMC leaders. As she sat outside a booth amid heavy deployment of central forces, Adhikari arrived there and declared, ''I will not allow any hooliganism.'' He opposed Banerjee moving around with ''50-60 people'' with her. Banerjee accused the BJP of trying to ''rig'' the election by using central forces, election observers and officials. ''The BJP wants to rig this election. Polls in Bengal are usually peaceful. Is there a goonda raj here?'' she said, alleging intimidation of TMC polling agents and late-night visits by CRPF personnel to party workers' homes. ''The atrocities by the central forces are unprecedented. What is happening is not at all free and fair polls. But despite all this, we have full faith that we will win,'' she said after casting her vote. Adhikari dismissed the charges as ''frustration'', claiming Banerjee had realised that ''not a single vote was coming her way''. Tension flared again in Kalighat when Adhikari visited another booth, and TMC workers raised slogans against him. Police resorted to a lathi-charge to disperse the crowd as BJP supporters answered with counter-slogans. Reports of sporadic tension were also received from some other areas amid sights of long queues at polling stations, booth-level flare-ups, and political bickering. In Kolkata's Entally, BJP candidate Priyanka Tibrewal alleged that the TMC's polling agents tried to assault her after she objected to overcrowding inside a booth and a lack of voter privacy. In Panihati, BJP candidate and the R G Kar victim's mother, Ratna Debnath, faced protests, while her party colleague in Basanti, Bikash Sardar, alleged that ''200 to 250 TMC goons'' attacked his vehicle and assaulted his driver. The TMC, meanwhile, accused the central forces of exercising brute force on the general voters at Falta's Belsingha village, especially women, who were beaten up during a move to disperse a crowd from near a polling station.The party also alleged CAPF high-handedness on women and a four-year-old child at Sathachhia in Howrah and on villagers at Ausgram in Purba Bardhaman district. ''In the name of ensuring security, central force jawans are not sparing even women who were brutally lathi-charged. TMC protests this highhandedness of the male jawans who exercised brute force on unarmed villagers. We draw the EC's attention to such illegal actions of the CAPF and ask the poll body to issue cease-and-desist orders against such use of force. We believe, people of Bengal will respond to this on EVMs,'' Anirban Banerjee, party spokesperson, said. The BJP alleged that in several polling stations in Falta, the option to vote for the party was blocked using a tape over EVM poll buttons, and demanded repolls in the affected booths. The state's Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal said repolling was likely to be announced in booths where EVMs were found tampered with. However, the order will only be issued after authorities receive reports from the district election officer or election observers regarding allegations of EVM tampering, such as using tapes or a blot of ink, he said. Amid Bengal's charged political landscape, the balance of forces between anti-incumbency and the recalibration of electoral rolls is likely to determine the delicate arithmetic of power at Nabanna, the state's administrative nerve centre. Of the 142 seats that voted on Wednesday, the TMC had won 123 in 2021, leaving just 18 for the BJP and one for the ISF. Together, North and South 24 Parganas, Kolkata and Howrah account for 91 of Bengal's 294 assembly seats,nearly one-third of the House. Without cracking this southern belt, there is no realistic road to Nabanna for the saffron party. For the TMC, the arithmetic is equally blunt: Hold South Bengal, and Mamata Banerjee's road to a fourth straight term remains open. The high turnout gave both camps political ammunition. For the TMC, it signalled that Banerjee's welfare politics, women-centric schemes and personal connect remain intact despite corruption allegations, recruitment scams, anti-incumbency and sustained attacks over governance. For the BJP, the same turnout reflected silent anger against the ruling regime, consolidation of anti-TMC votes and a possible mandate for change after years of trying to convert Lok Sabha momentum into assembly power. Yet, beneath the headline turnout lay the election's deepest undercurrent: the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which saw over 90.83 lakh names deleted statewide, nearly 12 per cent of the electorate, radically redrawing Bengal's political map before a single vote was cast. The exercise shrank the electorate from 7.66 crore to 6.77 crore, injecting both a statistical and political dimension to the voter turnout figures. With a reduced denominator, even comparable participation in terms of absolute numbers pushed turnout percentages higher, reshaping the social and electoral composition of the voter base. The deepest cuts occurred in the districts that traditionally hold power: North and South 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Nadia, Malda, Hooghly, Howrah and Kolkata. North 24 Parganas alone lost 12.6 lakh names, South 24 Parganas 10.91 lakh, Murshidabad 7.48 lakh, Nadia 4.85 lakh, Malda 4.59 lakh, Kolkata nearly 6.97 lakh and Howrah around six lakh. In more than 120 constituencies, deleted names exceed either the 2021 victory margin or the 2024 Lok Sabha lead, turning turnout from a statistic into a post-poll argument over who was counted and who was not. Polling itself largely followed Bengal's familiar election script - long queues, booth-level clashes, accusations and counter-allegations. Yet compared to previous Bengal elections marked by widespread booth capturing, killings and sustained violence, this remained among the more peaceful contests, aided by record deployment of nearly 2,450 companies of central forces across the state. PTI PNT/SCH/AMR/BSM/SUS/SMY NSD BDC PNT PYK SAP SAP