The Election Commission of India (EC) is likely to delete an additional eight lakh names over and above the 58 lakh voters already removed from West Bengal’s draft electoral rolls, taking the total number of deletions triggered by the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) to around 66 lakh so far, according to a PTI report citing sources in the poll body.
An EC official said the exact number of deletions can be confirmed only after the complete rolls are published online. Even the final figures may not remain static, as additions through Form 6 applications and fresh deletions via Form 7 applications will continue to alter the tally.
As per the report, another 60.06 lakh names have been placed under the “under adjudication” category. These cases are currently being examined by judicial officers, and their inclusion or deletion will be decided in subsequent supplementary lists. Officials indicated that this adjudication process could further push up the total deletions in the final rolls.
At present, around 6.4 crore names have been approved as voters across the state. However, this figure is also expected to rise significantly once the scrutiny of the nearly 60 lakh voters under adjudication is completed and the final supplementary list is issued.
Hard copies of the rolls were published in phases on Saturday afternoon at SDO and BDO offices across districts. As of the latest reports, consolidated soft copies had not yet appeared on official portals such as voters.eci.gov.in, ceowestbengal.wb.gov.in, electoralsearch.eci.gov.in or on the ECINET mobile application.
The published rolls classify 7.08 crore electors, all of whom featured in the draft rolls, as “approved”, “deleted” or “under adjudication”. Those whose names are approved will be eligible to vote in the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections, the schedule for which is likely to be announced by the EC by mid-March.
The SIR process in West Bengal began on November 4 last year with the distribution of enumeration forms. The commission took 116 days to provisionally complete the exercise and release what officials described as a final but incomplete list, amid political turbulence, revised document verification norms and legal challenges.
When the draft rolls were published on December 16, the electorate had shrunk from 7.66 crore, the number of voters to whom enumeration forms were distributed based on rolls valid till August 2025, to 7.08 crore. More than 58 lakh names were deleted at that stage due to death, migration, duplication or untraceability.
The second phase of the exercise involved hearings for 1.67 crore electors, 1.36 crore flagged for “logical discrepancies” and 31 lakh without proper mapping. Around 60 lakh voters remain under adjudication primarily on grounds of logical discrepancies in their enumeration forms.
The SIR, the first statewide revision since 2002, was conceived by the poll panel as a statutory clean-up ahead of a major election.
(With inputs from PTI)
