The digitisation of forms and data uploaded to the Election Commission of India’s portal under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal is almost complete, with over 57.52 lakh voters marked for deletion across multiple categories.
MP: SIR nearing completion; over 38 lakh voters likely to be deleted (Photo: IANS)
The digitisation of forms and data uploaded to the Election Commission of India’s portal under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal is almost complete, with over 57.52 lakh voters marked for deletion across multiple categories.
According to figures compiled till Wednesday, the list includes 24,14,750 deceased voters, 11,57,889 voters who could not be traced, 19,89,914 voters marked as ‘shifted’, 1,35,627 identified as bogus, and 54,027 categorised under ‘others’.
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The SIR process, which began on 4 November across 12 states and union Territories, requires that all enumeration forms be uploaded by 11 December, followed by the publication of draft rolls on 16 December.
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The final electoral roll is scheduled for release on 14 February 2026.
Across these 12 regions, including West Bengal, around five lakh Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are engaged in the exercise, supported by over 12 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties.
The Commission has emphasised that BLOs must hold meetings with BLAs at the booth level to detect and correct any preliminary errors in the draft rolls. Such coordination, the EC has said, is essential to ensure that no eligible voter is wrongly excluded.
In West Bengal, the lists prepared so far, covering deceased, shifted, and untraceable or missing voters, must be handed over to political parties’ booth agents.
The Commission has instructed the Chief Electoral Officers of all 12 states and UTs to ensure that BLOs share these lists with BLAs and also upload them on the EC website. The guidelines followed in Bihar’s SIR will apply to this exercise as well.
A notification issued by the Commission on Wednesday reiterated that these lists must be shown to BLAs before the draft rolls are published. The designated agents of the political parties should be given copies of the names proposed for deletion.
Voters who have changed their address multiple times will be retained only in their current location and struck off from all previous lists.
Similarly, voters who could not be reached despite three or more BLO visits will not appear in the draft electoral roll.
The Commission maintains that these steps are crucial to producing an accurate and error-free voter list ahead of the 2026 election cycle.
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