Over 58 lakh names dropped as EC releases West Bengal draft electoral rolls after SIR

Kolkata, Dec 16: The Election Commission on Tuesday released West Bengal’s draft electoral rolls after completing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), revealing that more than 58 lakh voter names have been removed from the list on multiple grounds.

Following these deletions, the state’s electorate now stands at 7,08,16,631, down from 7,66,37,529 voters prior to the SIR, according to official figures.

Rolls made public amid election preparations

With Assembly elections expected early next year, the draft rolls have been uploaded on the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) West Bengal website, the Election Commission’s voter portal and the ECINET app.

Alongside the rolls, a booth-wise list detailing deleted names and the reasons for their removal has also been made public.

Hard copies will be available with Booth Level Officers (BLOs), who have been instructed to remain accessible to voters, while digital copies have been shared with representatives of the state’s eight recognised political parties.

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Hearings to begin after short gap

Senior commission officials said the process of hearings for voters affected by deletions will begin in about a week. The interim period is required for printing and serving hearing notices and creating corresponding digital records in the EC database.

The publication of the draft rolls comes after weeks of political tension and public concern surrounding the SIR exercise, which was conducted from November 4 to December 11.

The commission clarified that the deletion list includes names present in the January 2025 electoral rolls but missing from the post-SIR draft.

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Reasons behind large-scale deletions

According to EC sources, the bulk of deletions resulted from over 58 lakh “uncollectable” SIR enumeration forms. These cases involved voters reported as deceased, permanently shifted from their registered addresses, untraceable, or found to be registered in more than one constituency.

Detailed breakup of excluded voters

Data released earlier by the CEO’s office showed that 24,16,852 voters were marked as dead, 19,88,076 as permanently migrated, and 12,20,038 as missing or untraceable.

In addition, 1.38 lakh duplicate entries were identified, 1,83,328 names were categorised as ‘ghost’ voters, and more than 57,000 deletions were made due to other discrepancies flagged during enumeration. Altogether, 58,20,898 names were excluded from the draft rolls.

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Opportunity for voters to reclaim names

The Election Commission emphasised that removal from the draft roll is not final. Affected voters can file claims using Form 6 along with a declaration and supporting documents during the claims and objections period from December 16, 2025, to January 15, 2026.

Special Roll Observer for West Bengal and former bureaucrat Subrata Gupta urged voters not to panic if their names are missing. He said nearly 30 lakh voters whose details could not be matched with the 2002 electoral rolls would be called for hearings and given an opportunity to establish their eligibility before a final decision is taken.

The draft rolls had started appearing on the BLO application a day ahead of their official release, triggering political controversy. After Tuesday’s publication, the commission advised voters to verify their names either online or by contacting their local BLOs.