Congress MP Shashi Tharoor compared the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in Kerala and West Bengal, claiming it was one of the reasons the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the recent assembly elections in the eastern state.
While Tharoor admitted that the Congress might have benefited from the SIR of voter rolls in Kerala, the Thiruvananthapuram MP pointed out the large number of appeals in the West Bengal assembly compared to “a few hundred” in the southern state.
He also noted that only a small number of these cases in West Bengal were adjudicated before polling, leaving the vast majority unresolved at the time of voting.
“In the matter of the SIR, what I have said is a legitimate question to answer. Look at the Bengal case. 91 lakh names were struck off the rolls. Of those, 34 lakh living human beings have appealed, saying that they are around and they are legitimately entitled to vote,” Tharoor said.
Tharoor suspected that the removal of duplicate or multiple voter registrations in Kerala may have worked in favour of the Congress party by cleaning up inflated voter lists historically associated with rival political practices.
The assembly election results in Bengal and Kerala saw the BJP securing a historic victory in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, winning 207 seats and ending the Trinamool Congress's 15-year rule in the state.
Congress could win just two seats in the 294-member House. After the verdict, the BJP has formed its government in West Bengal for the first time, with Suvendu Adhikari leading the charge with the chief minister post.
In Kerala, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) ended the Left's 10-year reign, winning 102 of the 140 seats in the state assembly.
