Assembly Elections 2026: Will Bengal Be Able To Stop The Juggernaut?

Grave apprehensions surround the entire exercise of so-called 'elections' in West Bengal this time, given that lakhs and lakhs of genuine voters have been disenfranchised in the name of so-called Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which as experts have pointed out is nothing like what SIR exercises actually are supposed to be. This is not SIR and by calling it by that name, most parties have unintentionally legitimised the Election Commission of India’s (ECI’s) totally mala fide exercise.

Transparency and Right to Information (RTI) activist, Anjali Bharadwaj, in a tweet on November 13, 2025, revealed that in response to her RTI query, the Principal Secretary of the ECI wrote to her that “it has not taken any decision on initiating a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) across the country in 2025” and that the “ECI does not have a copy of the guidelines regarding the Bihar 2003 revision of electoral rolls!” So where was the decision taken? Everything is shrouded in mystery. And yet virtually 12 per cent of the electorate of the state stand disenfranchised.

Apart from such deletions, there have been allegations of fraudulent mass submission of Form 6 by BJP activists, for additions of names in the electoral rolls. Personally, I have had my fears about this so-called SIR and what it can mean, if the deletions and fraudulent additions taken together, are spread systematically in about 150 or more selected seats across the state. This has been the modus operandi in many states and has been linked to late night jumps in the percentage of votes polled. In many cases, allegations have also linked such increases to the counting suddenly slowing down, and no updates showing on the ECI’s website for hours. This has been a regular feature at least for the last three years.

However, the hope still was that since, the calculations by whoever does the manipulations, use 2021 results as baseline, they may be completely off the mark. It is well known that that was the peak of BJP's popularity, which has since waned very significantly. Veteran election analyst Prannoy Roy recently underlined this by showing that in the 21 by-elections since the 2021 elections (that is, 2021-26), the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has won 20 and the Congress 1. He further showed that in percentage terms, the by-election results showed an 11 percent gain for the TMC (from 50 percent to 61 percent) and a 14 percent decline for the BJP (from 38 to 24 percent). Some of the BJP’s loss has probably returned to the Left but even with this swing against the BJP, people are seriously hoping that the day might still be saved.

I am saying “might be saved” because the fear is now pervasive that this may not be an election at all, from all indications.

The worst fear arises from the fact that the desperation that the BJP is exhibiting this time is quite unprecedented. It already shows it will stop at nothing. We do not know what form the attempts to scuttle the elections will take but personally, I do not rule out widespread violence orchestrated by BJP goons, mostly imported from outside the state, providing an alibi to the central paramilitary forces to intervene leading to escalation, the likes of which the state has not seen in a long while. This will provide the perfect excuse to the Home Minister, who instead of attending to Manipur, is camping in the state, to countermand the elections and impose President’s rule.

Over the last two days, 2047 companies (2.4 lakh personnel) of Central Armed Police Forces have been deployed, for the first phase of West Bengal polls – that is more than eight times what was deployed in Manipur at the peak of clashes. In Manipur, only 28 companies and 29000 personnel were deployed. Over and above that amphibious tanks with automated weapons have been moving around the streets in a clear bid to instill fear. The game is clearly of an all-out war to take control of West Bengal. It is quite simply not an election.

If my fears come true (I sincerely hope they don't), we might have to see the end of elections in West Bengal for many years to come. The other possibility in these post-fascist times is that there will be even more truncated elections than this time because every fascist in these times wants to show how loved ‘he’ is by his people. So, the show and farce of elections will continue under the shadow of the paramilitary and armored cars, while all “opposition” leaders are kept behind bars. Let us not forget Delhi, where the entire top leadership of the Aam Aadmi Party and its government were put in jail for a long time in the run-up to the elections.

However, their games may still be defeated. Who would have thought the mighty United States of America would be shown its place by Iran? Why do I invoke Iran? Because, the more the ECI tries to scare the population of West Bengal into submission, the more are all memories the past struggles of Bengalis against the “borgis” – the Western outsiders – being revived. It is increasingly now the people of Bengal versus the aggressors. The heroic saga of Bengal in India’s freedom struggle is being recounted everywhere and people are bracing up for a bitter struggle. This struggle is going to be fought, first of all, at the hustings. The groundswell of popular anger against the BJP may still foil all their plans.

This time it will be a decisive popular struggle to defeat the BJP. There is no middle ground.

Will West Bengal be the Waterloo of the West India Company? Will the ashwamedha yajna horse of the Company be stopped in West Bengal? That is the challenge now that the Company must prepare to face.

Views expressed are personal.