Bengal poll battle heats up: EC, TMC swap ‘straight talk’

this election commission of india The ECI on Wednesday said the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections will be conducted “without fear, violence and intimidation”, sending a firm message to the verdict Trinamool Congress (TMC).In a post onVoting in the 294-member parliament is scheduled to be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29, with the vote counting date being May 4.The statement came after Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar held a meeting with the TMC delegation consisting of Derek O’Brien, Menaka Guruswamy, Sagarika Ghose and Saket Gokhale at Nirvachan Sadan in New Delhi.TMC reacted strongly, accusing ECI of taking action in favor of bjp The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has claimed that the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll is aimed at deleting the names of voters before the elections.The party claimed in X’s official response that hundreds of thousands of voters had been struck off the rolls, calling it a “systemic deprivation” of voters. It is said that the BJP, anticipating defeat in West Bengal, is using the ECI to influence the electoral process.The party also questioned the neutrality of election officials, claiming that some 2.7 million voters’ names had been removed from the 6 million voters who were subject to adjudication.According to TMC data, after the revision, the total number of voters in the state fell from 7.66 billion to 7.04 billion, a reduction of more than 6.1 million names.The heated exchanges highlighted growing tensions between pollsters and the ruling party as the state heads into a high-stakes assembly election.