2026 Bengal elections not legally void: Former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi accuses EC of suspicious steps

The 2026 West Bengal elections were legally invalid, according to former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi. At the same time, he said that some parts of the election may have been valid.

Quraishi demanded controls where Muslim voters could be removed in large numbers. According to him, a new vote should be held where necessary.

“Were the elections in Bengal legally valid or not? I believe they weren’t,” Kurajshi said.

“Perhaps the entire election is not rigged, but at least (the Supreme Court should) point out where there is suspicion,” he added.

Quraishi raised concerns about the November 5 Kolkata elections. He delivered the keynote address at the Hashim Abdul Halim Memorial Lecture.

He questioned how officials revised voter lists before the election. He said the matter was before the Supreme Court and hoped for the right decision.

Quraishi criticized the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls. He claimed that officials used it to indirectly control citizenship.

According to him, the process was not transparent and raised several questions. He expected the court’s ruling to clarify what the officials did right and what they did wrong.

According to him, voters should be able to exercise their rights without having to apply. He reminded that voter cards were previously delivered to people’s homes. According to him, voters did not have to negotiate to get their names on the lists.

“Many people have asked me: is SIR NRC through the back door? My answer is that SIR is NRC through the front door. In fact, he 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 fell swoop, in 15 days, all over Bengal, I read that in 49 constituencies, 70-80% Muslims were cut out and everyone called them Bangladeshis,” he added.

Quraishi also spoke about how the Election Commission of India should take decisions. He said the rules will first require the approval of all three commissioners. If they cannot agree, the majority should decide. He said only the Chief Election Commissioner cannot have the final say.

“If the CEC is left alone, it is not an election commission. It is one of the three,” he said.

He quoted an Indian Express report on CEC Gyanesh Kumar. The newspaper reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi raised objections. He raised at least 14 objections to the decisions that Kumar allegedly took on his own.

Criticism regarding the Bengal election

Trinamool Congress president Abhishek Banerjee criticized the court for allowing the election to proceed. He said that at that time 27 thousand voter cases were still pending.

He held the Supreme Court responsible for his party’s defeat in the West Bengal elections. Mamata Banerjee, a former chief minister, called the result a “murder of democracy”. She blamed central agencies. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi also accused the BJP of stealing the people’s mandate.