Explained: This article explains the political background, key decisions, and possible outcomes related to Explained : ECI a ‘Tughlaqi’ commission: Mamata Banerjee and Its Impact and why it matters right now.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday intensified her attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI), calling it a “Tughlaqi Commission” and alleging that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state is being used to arbitrarily delete voters.
Speaking at the state secretariat, Banerjee accused the poll panel of targeting Bengal under political pressure. “A woman functionary in the BJP IT cell removed 58 lakh voters’ names in Bengal using AI. The EC is defying Supreme Court orders, targeting voters, and undermining democracy,” she alleged, without furnishing evidence.
Her remarks come amid mounting political and legal scrutiny of the SIR process in West Bengal, where lakhs of electors have been flagged under the category of “logical discrepancies” — a term the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has derided as vague and misleading.
What is the ‘logical discrepancy’ row?
Under the SIR, the ECI conducts a detailed verification of the electoral roll to remove ineligible entries such as deceased persons, duplicates or those who have shifted constituencies. In Bengal’s case, however, the process has been marked by a high volume of notices issued to voters flagged for “logical discrepancies”.
These discrepancies reportedly include anomalies such as implausible parent–child age gaps, repeated use of the same parentage details across multiple electors, and data mismatches detected through cross-verification exercises. The Commission has maintained that such flags are part of a standard data validation process aimed at cleaning the rolls before elections.