As the West Bengal Assembly elections approach, all attention remains fixed on Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress. While much of the debate around the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls has centred on its impact on Muslim voters, a deeper and more widespread challenge is quietly emerging for the ruling party. Women, who have long served as one of the Trinamool Congress’s strongest and most consistent pillars of support, now show signs of erosion in ways that concentrated community mobilisation cannot easily offset.
Unlike Muslim voters, who tend to cluster in specific pockets where shared anxieties can drive high turnout and consolidation despite deletions, women voters are dispersed across every constituency in the state. Their preferences have repeatedly proven decisive, turning competitive seats into comfortable victories for the Trinamool Congress through multiple election cycles. This broad distribution makes their support both uniquely powerful and especially vulnerable to even modest shifts in numbers or enthusiasm.
The SIR process has reversed a long-standing trend of improving gender balance in Bengal’s electoral rolls. For the first time in over a decade, the ratio of women to men among registered voters has declined noticeably. This contraction raises serious concerns for a party that has relied heavily on women’s loyalty to secure its hold on power.
In 2021, the Trinamool Congress leaned into women-centric campaigns and newly introduced welfare schemes to build a formidable gender advantage. Slogans that framed Mamata Banerjee as the protector of Bengal’s daughters struck a chord, while schemes promising direct financial assistance generated fresh hope among women from poorer households.
Today, those galvanising narratives feel distant. The welfare programmes that once sparked enthusiasm have settled into routine support with only modest increments. Fresh controversies surrounding women’s safety have tested loyalty across different sections of female voters. When women are spread throughout the state rather than confined to particular areas, any decline in their registration or enthusiasm tends to ripple through hundreds of booths, quietly undermining margins that once appeared secure.
The coming election may well determine whether the Trinamool Congress can rebuild momentum among this critical but dispersed base or whether the silent erosion of women’s support will prove more damaging than deletions in concentrated minority pockets. In the final analysis, Mamata Banerjee’s biggest worry may not rest solely in the arithmetic of Muslim voter lists, but in the broader weakening of the gender edge that has underpinned her party’s repeated successes.
How Women Delivered for Mamata Banerjee
Women voters played a pivotal role in the TMC's 2021 triumph. Their higher support compensated for any turnout gaps and amplified margins in competitive seats. The 13-point gender lead over the BJP among women translated into decisive seat gains across rural and urban areas. Schemes promising financial assistance to women heads of households, initially Rs 500 for general category and Rs 1,000 for SC/ST/OBC, resonated strongly, particularly among the poor and lower classes. The TMC fielded 50 women candidates, signalling inclusivity.
Campaigns such as “Bangla Nijer Mey Ke Chay” (Bengal Wants Its Own Daughter) framed Mamata Banerjee as a protector of women's interests against perceived threats from the BJP. This narrative, combined with tangible benefits from existing programmes, helped the party retain and expand its edge even as the BJP made inroads among men and certain Hindu social groups.
Post-2021 trends showed women's turnout often matching or exceeding men's in several phases, underscoring their growing electoral agency. Unlike bloc voting in concentrated minority areas, women's preferences operate constituency by constituency, making their erosion harder to contain through localised mobilisation.
The Impact of SIR on Women Voters
The SIR exercise has triggered a measurable contraction in women's presence on the rolls. According to reports, the drop from 969 to 964 women per 1,000 men reverses a decade-long improvement in gender balance among electors. With total voters falling by nearly 16% in net terms (accounting for deletions and pending cases), even a modest disproportionate deletion of women -- driven by documentation hurdles around marriage, relocation, or family verification -- can significantly reduce their share. In a state where women comprise nearly half the electorate, a 5-point ratio decline, if sustained or compounded by adjudication outcomes, could translate into several lakh fewer women voters participating.
Analysts note that deletions hit districts with mixed demographics, but the gender skew suggests broader effects beyond Muslim-heavy pockets. Issues like name mismatches after marriage or incomplete paperwork disproportionately burden women, who may have lower access to consistent documentation. While the BJP attributes any decline to social factors such as alleged female foeticide under TMC rule, the timing and scale point to procedural outcomes of the intensive revision. Over 60 lakh cases under adjudication for weeks created uncertainty, potentially discouraging registration drives among women who might face additional barriers in producing proofs.
Quantifying the exact percentage drop in effective women's votes remains challenging without final supplementary lists, but the ratio shift alone signals a reversal of the trend that favoured the TMC.
If women previously formed 48-49% of the electorate with higher loyalty, even a 1-2% absolute reduction in their numbers -- or suppressed turnout due to deletion angst -- could shave critical margins in dozens of marginal seats where the 2021 victory hinged on 5-10% swings.
Calculating The Challenge For TMC
To offset potential losses from a shrunken and less enthusiastic women base, the TMC may need to achieve extraordinarily high consolidation among remaining women voters, potentially exceeding 55-60% in key segments, to maintain its edge. In 2021, the 50% support among women delivered a 13-point lead over the BJP. Assuming a 5-8% effective drop in women electors due to the ratio decline and adjudication (a conservative estimate based on overall shrinkage and gender skew), the party would require compensating gains elsewhere or deeper penetration among women who do remain on the rolls.
Simple arithmetic illustrates the pressure.
If women voters drop from roughly 49% to 47-48% of the total electorate, and their support slips even marginally due to fatigue, the TMC's overall vote share could dip below the 2021 level in competitive constituencies. To secure similar seat outcomes, the party might need women support to climb towards 55%+ among the reduced pool, especially in non-Muslim majority areas where votes are more fragmented. This threshold becomes harder without fresh mobilisation tools. Muslim voters, concentrated in about 125 influential seats, can still consolidate behind the TMC out of shared concerns over the SIR and BJP’s Hindutva and its policies, mitigating deletions through community turnout. Women, dispersed everywhere, offer no such easy recovery mechanism.
Fresh Challenges And Absence Of Past Advantages
Compounding the SIR effect are governance issues that risk alienating women. The RG Kar Medical College incident and associated protests highlighted concerns around women's safety and institutional accountability, generating widespread discontent among urban and educated women.
Unlike the 2021 campaign's focused appeal to women as a unified constituency, recent TMC messaging lacks equivalent galvanising slogans or women-centric drives. The Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, a game-changer in 2021 when newly launched, now faces diminished returns. The government has hiked the monthly assistance by only Rs 500 (to Rs 1,500 for general category and Rs 1,700 for SC/ST women), a modest increment that may not reignite the same hope or gratitude after five years of implementation. Inflation, repeated demands for larger support, and competition from opposition promises (including BJP signals of higher amounts) erode its novelty.
In past elections, fresh welfare announcements and a narrative of Mamata Banerjee as the "daughter" defending Bengal's women created emotional and material bonds. This time, with the scheme mature and incremental rather than transformative, and amid controversies over safety and governance, consolidating 50%+ women support demands heavier lifting. Women are not monolithic; their votes split along class, caste, and regional lines, with poorer women historically more loyal but increasingly expectant of sustained benefits. Middle and upper-class women show more volatility.
For the TMC, the women voter decline poses a broader strategic headache than Muslim list deletions alone. Pockets of Muslim concentration allow targeted recovery through fear of the BJP and community networks. Women, integral to every booth, require universal outreach that the current mix of modest scheme tweaks and reactive narratives may struggle to deliver.
(Sayantan Ghosh is the author of two books, Battleground Bengal and The Aam Aadmi Party, and teaches at St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata.)
