Kolkata: The electorate in the Bhowanipore assembly constituency has shrunk by nearly 25% following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), with over 51,000 names deleted from the rolls.The high-profile seat — where chief minister Mamata Banerjee is contesting against BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari — saw a total of 51,004 deletions. Of these, 23.3% are Muslims and 76.7% are non-Muslims.Before the SIR process, Bhowanipore had 2,06,295 voters. In the first phase, 44,787 names were removed under categories such as absent, shifted, deceased, duplicate, or unmapped. A second round saw another 2,342 deletions, while 18 new voters were added. Around 14,154 voters were placed under adjudication, according to sources.Researchers from Sabar Institute — Ashin Chakraborty, Souptik Halder and Sabir Ahamed — said their analysis of 15 supplementary lists showed that 10,238 voters initially marked under adjudication were later reinstated, while 3,875 were deleted. “Among those deleted on the supplementary lists, nearly 40% are Muslims,” Chakraborty said.Election Commission sources confirmed that around 3,500 names were deleted during the judicial adjudication process. “The constituency has seen a reduction of over 50,000 voters compared to pre-SIR figures. Nearly 14,000 cases were marked under adjudication in the chief minister’s constituency,” an official said.Chakraborty noted that in the final roll, about 56.7% of those flagged ‘under adjudication’ were Muslims — significantly higher than their estimated 20% share of the population as per the 2011 Census. “Although the share of Muslims among deletions on supplementary lists has come down to around 40%, it remains disproportionately high,” he said.The institute’s analysis also showed that 43.4% of non-Muslims were placed under adjudication. While 7.7% of Muslims were ultimately deleted from the final rolls, the figure for non-Muslims stood at 92.3%.Earlier data indicated that Muslims accounted for 22.7% of voters marked as ‘Absent, Shifted, Dead/Duplicate’ (ASDD), while their share among ‘unmapped’ voters was around 26%, broadly in line with their population. However, in the ‘logical discrepancy’ category, their share rose sharply to 52%.“Given the awareness about voting rights, support from local political activists, and accessibility for fresh applications, we are also seeing significant new enrolments and reinstatements,” said Ahamed.
