Bengal voter churn: Lakhs struck off as EC publishes post-SIR rolls in phases

Kolkata, Feb 28 (PTI) The Election Commission's phased publication of the post-SIR electoral rolls in West Bengal has revealed that Nadia district has recorded around 2.71 lakh deletions since the exercise began in November, while Bankura has seen a net reduction of 1.18 lakh names, underscoring the scale of churn ahead of the assembly elections due in April.

In the north Kolkata zone, comprising seven assembly constituencies all currently held by the TMC, around 4.07 lakh names were omitted from the rolls during the SIR process, EC sources said.

Of these, about 3.90 lakh were removed in the draft stage and another 17,000 in the final list. However, the number of fresh additions in north Kolkata is yet to be officially ascertained.

In Bankura, where the electorate was 30,33,830 at the start of the SIR process, the draft rolls had reduced the figure to 29,01,009. After hearings and scrutiny in the subsequent phase, around 4,000 more names were deleted, though a few thousand fresh inclusions under Form 6 were approved. The final roll now stands at around 29,15,000, reflecting a net deletion of about 1.18 lakh names since the commencement of the exercise, a senior district official said.

According to available data, Bangladesh-bordering Nadia district saw the deletion of around 2.73 lakh names as the number of voters in the final roll stood at 41.45 lakh, down from 44.18 lakh when the SIR process commenced on November 4 last year. The figure had come down to 42,02,261 after the draft rolls were published on December 16.

In Alipurduar in north Bengal, 11,96,651 names featured in the final rolls, with the total deletions in the district standing at 1,02,835, officials said.

Hard copies of the updated rolls were put up in several districts on Saturday, even as the lists were yet to be made available online on the designated EC portals and mobile application till reports last received.

Election Commission officials maintained that deletions were primarily on account of death, migration, duplication and untraceability, while additions were processed after scrutiny of documents.

According to officials, the publication classifies 7.08 crore electors, whose names appeared in the draft rolls issued on December 16, into three categories: 'approved', 'deleted' and 'under adjudication/under consideration'.

The draft rolls had already seen the state's electorate shrink from 7.66 crore, based on names appearing in the rolls till August 2025, to 7.08 crore, with over 58 lakh names deleted during the first phase of scrutiny.

The SIR, the first such statewide revision since 2002, involved hearings for 1.67 crore electors, 1.36 crore flagged for 'logical discrepancies' and 31 lakh lacking proper mapping. Around 60 lakh voters continue to remain under adjudication, with supplementary rolls to be issued in phases as decisions are taken.

Meanwhile, the publication triggered visible public anxiety across districts. Long queues were seen outside district election offices as voters sought to check whether their names had figured in the updated rolls.

In several parts of the state, residents crowded notice boards displaying printed lists, going through pages and capturing photographs of entries on mobile phones. At district magistrate and sub-divisional offices, people waited in serpentine queues to verify whether their names had been marked 'approved', 'deleted' or kept 'under adjudication'.

The roll revision has added a sharp political edge to the assembly elections due in April, with the ruling TMC and the BJP trading charges over the intent and impact of the exercise.

While the commission has described the SIR as a statutory clean-up aimed at ensuring a "pure and error-free" electoral roll, parties across the spectrum have stepped up booth-level scrutiny and outreach, aware that even marginal shifts in voter lists in key districts could influence the electoral arithmetic in what is expected to be a closely contested poll. PTI