The first draft of the voter list was released in West Bengal on Tuesday, after a little over a month-long Special Intensive Revision exercise (SIR), which ended on December 11. 32 lakh people are likely to get notices and hearings in front of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) will take place seven days later. Work is currently being done at the backend by the Election Commission (EC).
The categories of deletions stand at:
Deceased- 2,41,6000 voters.
Shifted or absent - 3,26,5000 voters.
Duplication - 1,38,000 voters.
Rechecking - Over 1 crore enumeration forms.
“Eligible voters will remain; the ones who are not genuine will be left out. There is no need to fear. There will be no warrant. It is an administrative hearing," said Manoj Agarwal, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, who terms these hearings as quasi-judicial.
58,20,899 names have been left out of the draft list. Purba Medinipore constituency has the minimum deletion of names, at 3.31 per cent, while Kolkata North constituency has maximum deletions, at 25.82 per cent.
Genuine voters whose names have been deleted can be added back to the draft voter list through the 1-month claims and objections period by submitting forms with 13 relevant documents accepted by the EC.
There are various forms available for genuine voters to fill, whose names have been left out of the draft list. These include:
Form 6 - Application Form for new voters.
Form 6A - Application for an NRI voter.
Form 7 - Inclusion of names of voters deleted from the present list.
Form 8 - Change of residence or correction of names.
Sukanta Majumdar, Bharatiya Janata Party leader, hit out at Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister, on the deletion of voters and forms under scrutiny. “These anomalies prove that Mamata Banerjee administration has been allowing those from Bangladesh, including those who had to save themselves from religious persecution, have been misled by Mamata Banerjee to not fill the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) form, as they will not be excluded (from SIR list)," said Majumdar.
“Now, if anyone’s name is deleted because of not filling the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) form on time, will Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister, take responsibility? Or will she find a way to include their names in the draft list? She has to take responsibility," added Majumdar.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) slammed the deletion of more than 58 lakh names from the draft voter list. “We are keeping an eye that no genuine voter gets excluded. That is where we were opposing the Special Intensive Revision exercise (SIR), because this was being done in a very short time. What preceded the year 2002 list was the year 2001 census. The Government of India asks for a large time frame for the census, but completes SIR in a rush. That was intentional. This is causing more trauma and terror among people," said Sashi Panja, TMC leader.
“The BJP’s narrative of the script was to show that the people who were deleted were the vote bank of Mamata Banerjee. The continuous denial of the people’s verdict in the previous three assembly elections or Lok Sabha elections, the BJP continues to deny how they have lost and why TMC has won," added Panja.
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Meanwhile, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) were protesting outside the office of the West Bengal CEO on the day the draft voter list was released. Bappaditya Banerjee, a Booth Level Officer (BLO) from Manteswar and Joint Convenor of the BLO Adhikar Rakha Committee, demanded that genuine voters whose names have been deleted from the 2025 Special Intensive Revision exercise (SIR) should be included. “Those whose names have been deleted from the list, will they leave us? They will think we have left their names out of the list. But we are not responsible for this; it is the EC," said Banerjee.
Of the 7.6 crore electorate in the state, 7.08 crore voters submitted enumeration forms. Eight recognised political parties assisted Booth Level Officers (BLOs) on the field with the SIR exercise, with 1,81,454 Booth Level Agents (BLAs). EC terms the Special Intensive Revision exercise (SIR) as successful, and holding awareness campaigns and meetings with political parties, explaining the SIR process.
