Voter rolls, not just EVMs: How Opposition is coming to a new understanding on BJP’s alleged rigging

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee caused a stir on February 27 when she claimed fake voters were being “smuggled into electoral rolls” ahead of the state’s polls in 2026, echoing allegations made earlier by the Maha Vikas Aghadi in Maharashtra and the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi.

This claim that there has been fraud in preparing India’s voter list is at the core of a new consensus emerging within the Opposition, interviews with leaders from five major parties belonging to the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance showed.

This alleged manipulation of the electoral rolls helps the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party skew elections, officials of these parties told Scroll. Before this, some Opposition leaders had also claimed that the Hindutva party was benefitting from electronic voting machines being rigged.

As Banerjee addressed the press, behind the scenes, leaders of her party “coordinated actively” with the Congress party’s data analytics head Praveen Chakravarty to share “technical expertise,” Chakravarty confirmed to Scroll.

As proof, the Trinamool Congress circulated a list of 129 voters from a single constituency in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district whose Electors Photo Identity Card numbers had also been assigned to people in other states. The duplication of EPIC numbers, which the Election Commission says are designed to be unique to every...

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