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EC publishes Bengal's SIR draft rolls; over 58 lakh deletions redraw voter map, trigger political slugfest

Kolkata, Dec 16 (PTI) The Election Commission 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 and migration, and redrawing voter profiles across districts and border belts ahead of the 2026 assembly polls. The scale, spread and political geography of 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 in less than six months. The current term of the 294-member West Bengal assembly is till the first week of May 2026. 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 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 EC officials stressed that deletion from the draft roll does not end a voter's chances of restoration and said 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. 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 the hearing will be on account of printing of notices for the hearing, 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 rolls on account of deletion of their names, those having logical discrepancies in their enumeration forms despite their names figuring would also 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 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, a prospect that has already become a flashpoint in political exchanges. According to data released by the 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. In the 2021 assembly election, Adhikari defeated Banerjee in Nandigram by 1,956 votes, prompting her return to the assembly through a Bhabanipur bypoll, which she won by 58,832 votes. 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. 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. Meanwhile, the publication of the draft rolls intensified political slugfest. The ruling TMC alleged that the exercise was a "joint conspiracy" by the BJP and the EC and claimed that the prospect of hearings for nearly two crore voters was intended to intimidate citizens and cast doubts over their citizenship. The party also argued that the SIR figures undercut BJP claims that the state hosts "one crore Rohingyas and Bangladeshis", with the number of voters identified as 'fake' or 'ghost' pegged at around 1.83 lakh. The BJP rejected the charge, with Adhikari dismissing the allegations and remarking that the process had "only just begun". Union minister Sukanta Majumdar said the deletions validated the party's long-standing demand for an intensive revision. 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. Adding a human and surreal dimension to the controversy, Surya Dey, a councillor of Dankuni Municipality, walked into a crematorium near Kolkata on Tuesday, demanding that his last rites be performed after claiming that the EC had listed him among the "dead" in the draft rolls. He said that while checking lists linked to the SIR exercise, he found his name recorded as deceased despite having filled and submitted his enumeration form to the booth-level officer. "Since the Commission has declared me dead, it should complete the process," Dey said as he walked into the Kalipur crematorium. "Let the officials come and cremate me." With claims, objections and hearings now set to stretch into the New Year, the battle over Bengal's voter rolls has moved from spreadsheets to street politics, turning a technical exercise into a defining prelude to the 2026 assembly contest. PTI SMY/PNT ACD NN PNT

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