The 2026 West Bengal elections were legally invalid, according to former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi. At the same time, he said some parts of the election might have been valid.
Quraishi called for checks where Muslim voters could have been removed in large numbers. He said fresh polling should take place where necessary.
“Was the Bengal election legally valid or not? I believe it wasn’t,” Quraishi said.
“Maybe the whole election isn’t ruined, but at least (the Supreme Court should) point out where there is suspicion,” he added.
Quraishi raised concerns about the elections in Kolkata on November 5. He delivered the keynote address at the Hashim Abdul Halim Memorial Lecture.
He questioned how officials had revised the voter lists before the elections. He said the matter was before the Supreme Court and hoped for the right decision.
Quraishi criticised the special intensive revision () of the voter lists. He alleged that officials had used it to indirectly check citizenship.
According to him, the process lacked transparency and had raised several questions. He expected the court’s judgment to clarify what officials did right and what went wrong.
He said voters should be able to exercise their rights without having to plead. He recalled that voter cards were earlier delivered to people’s homes. He said voters did not have to negotiate to get their names on the lists.
“Many people asked me: is the SIR NRC through the back door? My answer is that SIR is NRC through the front door. In fact, it is the father of NRC,” The Wire quoted him as saying.
“There, they followed legal procedures for years to reach a conclusion. Here, in one stroke, within 15 days, across Bengal, I read that in 49 constituencies, 70-80% of Muslims were cut, calling them all Bangladeshis,” he added.
Quraishi also spoke about how the Election Commission of India should take decisions. He said the rules would first call for all three commissioners to agree. If they cannot agree, the majority should decide. He said the Chief Election Commissioner alone cannot have the final say.
“If the is left alone, he is not the Election Commission. He is one out of three,” he said.
He cited an Indian Express report about CEC Gyanesh Kumar. The newspaper said election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections. It reported at least 14 objections to decisions Kumar had allegedly taken on his own.
Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee criticised the court for allowing the election to go ahead. He said 27 lakh voter cases were still pending at the time.
He held the Supreme Court responsible for his party’s defeat in the West Bengal elections. , the former chief minister, called the outcome a “murder of democracy”. She blamed central agencies. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also accused the BJP of stealing the people’s mandate.
