Lost in SIR debate: Muslim attrition from Trinamool Congress

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like The electoral impact of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in West Bengal continues to animate political discussion in the state. SIR’s adjudication phase, which was unique to West Bengal, led to disproportionate deletions in Muslim dominated districts and assembly constituencies (ACs) in the state. These pages showed yesterday why the difference in absolute votes polled by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) being similar to total SIR deletions in the state is not compelling proof that the SIR helped the BJP win West Bengal elections. Trinamol Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee speaks to people after special morning namaz on the occasion of Eid-Ul-Fitr on March 21 (HT File Photo/Samir Jana)A deeper analysis of the election results provides more evidence that the obsession with attributing TMC’s loss to SIR is misplaced. In fact, Muslims on the electoral roll, rather than those who were possibly disenfranchised because of SIR, might have played a bigger role in the TMC’s poor showing this time. Here is how. The first piece of evidence is the most obvious and was highlighted yesterday as well. The number of Muslim MLAs in the West Bengal assembly has remained almost unchanged. It was 44 in 2021 and is 40 in 2026. However, what has changed significantly is the number of non-TMC, non-BJP Muslim MLAs. It was just one in 2021: the Left Front backed Indian Secular Front (ISF) candidate in Bhangar. The number has increased to six in 2026: two from the Congress, two from the Aam Janata Unnayan Party floated by the former TMC leader Humayun Kabir, one from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and one from Left Front backed ISF. The number of Muslim MLAs from the TMC has fallen from 43 in 2021 to 34 in 2026. This suggests that non-TMC Muslim candidates had a greater appeal to defeat the BJP in 2026 than in 2021. The BJP did not put up any Muslim candidates in 2026. The second piece of evidence is a more broad-based measure of fragmentation in Muslim votes and looks at spoiler candidates. This analysis uses a relatively strict criterion for defining a spoiler candidate: a third placed candidate who polled more votes than the victory margin. The number of spoiler candidates fell from 118 in 2021 to 89 in 2026. However, the number of spoilers where the TMC was the victim (finishing second) remained unchanged at 43 in both 2021 and 2026. What is even more revealing is the fact that number of Muslim spoiler candidates for the TMC increased from just two in 2021 to 11 in 2026. The number of ACs in which BJP was the victim fell from 67 to 37 between 2021 and 2026. This was led by a large fall in number of non-Muslim spoiler candidates hurting the BJP, down from 59 in 2021 to 18 in 2026, even though the number of Muslim spoilers which cost the BJP a victory increased from eight to 19. The numbers presented above support the conclusion from the first set of numbers of an increase in non-TMC non-BJP Muslim MLAs between 2021 and 2026. The number of ACs where Muslims played spoiler — possibly resulting from greater fragmentation in Muslim votes — increased between 2021 and 2026. The third piece of statistical evidence is the most compelling. HT has compared district-wise vote share of the BJP, TMC and non-TMC non-BJP candidates in 2021 and 2026 elections. Because we do not have AC-wise data on religious break-up of population, this is the best proxy for comparing party-performance by religious composition of the electorate. BJP’s vote share shows a fall as one goes from low to high Muslim population share districts in both 2021 and 2026. This makes sense given the assumption that Muslims do not vote for the BJP. In 2021, TMC’s vote share showed an increasing trend in districts as population share of Muslims increased. This does not hold in 2026. The TMC polled its second lowest vote share in Murshidabad district, which has the state’s highest Muslim population share. Is this a result of Muslims being deleted under the SIR process? Accepting this argument requires running the final statistical check by looking at the district-wise vote share of non-BJP non-TMC parties. It was almost uniformly low and flat in the 2021 elections barring the Darjeeling district. Darjeeling has the lowest share of Muslim population, but the TMC did not field its own candidates in most ACs in the district in 2021, and supported various regional Gurkha outfits. In 2026, the non-TMC non-BJP vote share and Muslim population share best fit line shows a rising trend as Muslim population share increases. It is the highest in Murshidabad district, where the TMC has polled its second lowest vote share. Five of the six non-TMC, non-BJP MLAs are from Murshidabad district. Murshidabad saw the highest proportionate voter deletions during the adjudication process of SIR, which led to higher deletions in Muslim dominated districts and ACs, as we had shown earlier. Anybody who reads all three sets of numbers cited here must concede that at least some of the Muslims who remained on the electoral roll have moved away from the TMC between 2021 and 2026 , picking another non-BJP alternative. The reason for this could not have been SIR and ought to be found in the TMC’s politics. Roshan Kishore is the Data and Political Economy Editor at Hindustan Times. His weekly column for HT Premium Terms of Trade appears every Friday.