EC publishes draft electoral rolls in Bengal over 58 lakh names deleted under SIR

    Kolkata, Dec 16 (PTI) The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday published West Bengal's draft electoral rolls following SIR, deleting the names of more than 58 lakh voters on various grounds, including death, migration and non-submission of enumeration forms, officials said.
    The deletions have affected several high-profile assembly seats, and have sharpened political fault lines and set the stage for a contentious verification phase ahead of state elections due early next year.
    According to official data, 58,20,898 names have been excluded from the draft rolls, reducing the state's electorate from 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore following the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise from November 4 to December 11.
    A senior commission official said that the hearing process for affected voters would begin in about a week's time.
    The gap between the publication of the draft rolls and the commencement of hearing will be on account of printing of hearing notices, serving those to the electors concerned and creating digital backup for the same on the EC database, the official said.
    Besides, those submitting claims and objections with regard to the published draft roll from where their names have been deleted, and electors having logical discrepancies in their enumeration forms but whose names have been included in the draft roll would be summoned for hearings, officials said.
    Moreover, the commission had received enumeration forms of around 85 lakh electors with name mismatches with the 2002 list, and they may also be summoned, he added.
    Although there is no clarity just yet on the exact number of voters who may be called for the hearing sessions, EC sources said that the figure may touch the two crore-mark.
    According to data released by EC last week, beyond the aggregate numbers, constituency-wise data released by the commission has drawn sharp political reactions, with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's Bhabanipur seat emerging as one of the most affected.
    Bhabanipur recorded 44,787 deletions from 2,06,295 voters listed in January 2025 -- nearly four times the removals seen in Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari's Nandigram, which logged 10,599 deletions from 2,78,212 voters.
    The highest number of deletions among the state's 294 assembly constituencies was recorded in north Kolkata's Chowringhee, represented by TMC MLA Nayana Bandyopadhyay, where 74,553 names were struck off.
    Kolkata Port, held by senior minister and city Mayor Firhad Hakim, saw 63,730 deletions, while Tollygunge, represented by minister Aroop Biswas, recorded 35,309 removals.
    Other constituencies with large-scale deletions included Dum Dum, held by Education Minister Bratya Basu, with 33,862 names removed; North Dum Dum, represented by Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, with 33,912 deletions; and Chandannagar, represented by minister Indranil Sen, where 25,478 names were struck off.
    At the district level, South 24 Parganas accounted for the highest volume of deletions at 8,16,047, according to the data.
    The scale of the revision has invited comparisons with Bihar, where a similar SIR earlier this year saw around 65 lakh names excluded from draft rolls, triggering widespread political backlash.
    The Election Commission has made the draft rolls, along with a detailed booth-wise list of deleted voters and reasons for deletion, available on the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal website, the EC's voter portal and the ECINET application.
    A separate portal allows voters to check whether their own or family members' names have been removed and under which category.
    Commission sources said the bulk of deletions stemmed from what were termed "uncollectable SIR enumeration forms".
    These included cases where voters were found to be deceased, had permanently shifted, were untraceable at their registered addresses, or were recorded as duplicate voters across constituencies.
    A detailed breakup released earlier showed that 24,16,852 voters were marked as dead, 19,88,076 as permanently shifted, and 12,20,038 as missing or untraceable. Another 1.38 lakh voters were identified as having duplicate entries, while 1,83,328 names were flagged as so-called 'ghost' voters.
    Over 57,000 names were deleted under other discrepancies detected during enumeration.
    The commission stressed that deletion from the draft roll does not end a voter's chances of restoration.
    Aggrieved voters can file claims in Form 6 along with a declaration form and supporting documents during the claims and objections window from December 16, 2025, to January 15, 2026.
    Special Roll Observer for West Bengal, Subrata Gupta, said voters whose names did not appear in the draft list should not panic, noting that around 30 lakh voters whose details could not be matched with the 2002 electoral rolls would be called for hearings to establish eligibility.
    The publication of the draft rolls has intensified political sparring.
    The ruling TMC alleged a "joint conspiracy" by the BJP and the Election Commission, claiming that the prospect of hearings for nearly two crore voters was intended to intimidate citizens and cast doubts over their citizenship.
    The BJP rejected the charge, with Adhikari dismissing the allegations and remarking that the process had "only just begun".
    The SIR exercise has also been accompanied by claims of "SIR-related panic", with the TMC alleging that 40 people, including four booth-level officers, have died due to stress linked to the process. The BJP has rejected these claims as politically motivated.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)