India, April 11 -- Has the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, with its unique adjudication feature, led to a gerrymandering of the state's electorate ahead of assembly elections?

This question arises because districts or assembly constituencies (ACs) with more Muslim voters suffered higher deletions during the adjudication process. Since Muslims have little probability of voting for the Bharatiya Janata Party and a high likelihood of voting for the Trinamool Congress (TMC), their deletion will help the BJP. But how does one answer the larger question about electoral outcomes and gerrymandering? The best way is to use a three-step process.

These pages were the first to point out that SIR need not lead to a fall in the absol...