Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has claimed that a “ghost political party” is attempting to register at least 20,000 – 30,000 fake voters in each assembly seat across the state ahead of the 2026 elections.
Not naming any specific political party, Banerjee initially stated, “Babus has come to Bengal and is sitting here to register 20,000 to 30,000 fake voters in each assembly seat. The elections will be conducted by the Indian Election Commission, which will send in central forces. Non-Bengali voters will turn out to vote. “We will foil your plans.”
She claimed that voters from Bihar were being registered in West Bengal using online registration.
Banerjee specifically targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in reference to the results of the Delhi and Maharashtra assembly elections. “How did the BJP increase its vote share by four million in Maharashtra?” What did you do in Delhi? One day, the truth will come out. “While some people solve mathematical problems quickly, others may take longer,” she explained.
Suvendu Adhikari, a BJP legislator and opposition leader in the state legislative assembly, responded, saying, “She (Banerjee) has been chief minister for 14 years. Is she even sure what she is saying? Who are the electoral roll’s registration officers? District magistrates. We identified 1.6 million duplicate voters. “We will have their names removed before the 2026 elections.”
Last week, Rahul Gandhi, a Congress lawmaker, claimed there were irregularities in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly election. He claimed that more than 39 lakh voters were added to the state’s electoral rolls in five months. The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance won a landslide victory in the Maharashtra assembly election.
Ahead of the Delhi assembly elections, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal had also accused the BJP of manipulating the electoral rolls by registering “fake” voters from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Elections for the West Bengal Assembly, which has 294 seats, are scheduled for next year. In the 2021 elections while the TMC won 213 seats, the BJP won in 77 seats.
“Our workers will go and verify whether the voters actually exist or fake voters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were being registered. We will fight against it. The chief minister has instructed us,” Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, TMC leader and state agriculture minister, said.
The BJP, however, hit back saying that they have drawn up a list of around 1.6 million fake voters in the state.
