The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has approached the Supreme Court with a pointed argument rooted in the court's own earlier observation, citing the deletion of voters under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in West Bengal.
The TMC argued that in at least 31 West Bengal assembly constituencies where it lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the BJP's winning margin was lower than the number of voters deleted from voter rolls under the SIR process.
The hearing brought into sharp focus a question that had been building since April — whether the controversial voter roll revision materially altered the outcome of the West Bengal assembly elections.
The TMC plea also cited one constituency where a TMC candidate lost by 862 votes, while over 5,432 persons had been removed from rolls pending adjudication.
The Supreme Court did not dismiss the argument on Monday, as Justice Bagchi directed that an application be filed with full details.
The court also noted that West Bengal's 11.6% deletion rate was the third highest among nine states that conducted SIR, behind only Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.
